Lauren Bush Lauren and her mother Sharon were among the honorees at Fashion 4 Development’s annual First Ladies Luncheon in New York City Tuesday.
Philanthropists, artists, activists and designers turned up at the event venue 583 Park Avenue for the event, which magnified the importance of global unity to seek peace and uplift impoverished people. In between the awards and the luncheon, a few hundred guests also watched two live fashion shows.
Looking back at her organization’s evolution, F4D founder Evie Evangelou said there is more of a multicultural approach to what’s happening in the world in order to create peace, and also to reach a wider audience, including in some of the more remote regions by extending its “Global Runway” and other initiatives. “We need to inform people of what is the beauty in all of these regions to try to dissipate the hatred, the racism and everything else,” she said.
Before taking to the stage, Lauren spoke of how fashion can reflect people’s values, and how that definitely can be a tool for diplomacy and cross-cultural understanding. She also remembered fondly how she had first heard of F4D through the late Italian Vogue editor Franca Sozzani. Her mother said the award from F4D was an honor because the organization is integral to women’s and children’s causes in particular, because women and children are the most vulnerable.
Later in the program when accepting the honor, Sharon Bush recalled how she raised her children to be philanthropic and make goodwill visits to homeless shelters and hospitals to teach them how they could be helpful. And it worked — as all three have each taken up humanitarian efforts. Bush described her daughter Lauren as “spectacular.”
Honored to be share the F4D accolades with her mother, Lauren spoke of how her mother started the Karitas Foundation to support homeless children. That allowed Lauren to see firsthand “what it means to be a social entrepreneur and a changemaker,” she said to a good amount of applause.
Lauren described her own nonprofit FEED as “my first baby for the last 17 years.” (Purchases of FEED gift products support its on-the-ground partners that are working to alleviate hunger crises and chronic malnutrition through school feeding programs.) Lauren recalled “the life-changing experience” that she had as a college student working with the United National World Food Program.
Speaking on that first trip to Guatemala with her mother and sister, Lauren said afterward, “I couldn’t [not] do something once you see a problem like that, especially childhood hunger.…It was shocking and heartbreaking and is still something completely unacceptable.”
Brandy Hellville director Eva Orner
Lucas Allen/HBO Courtesy Warner Bros. Discovery
Other honorees included Academy Award-winning film producer Eva Orner, and guests watched a clip of her documentary “Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion.” Having chronicled unfair labor practices and the environmental effects of fabrics discarded into landfills and water, she spoke of being sickened by the enormous amount of discarded clothes that she had seen covering the shoreline. Environmental journalist and author Amy Green was also honored at the event, as was the Chinese American television personality and philanthropist Yue-Sai Kan, who has helped to bring together cultural highlights from both countries.
During the event, guests also took in a Sandriver Cashmere fashion show and afterward they saluted founder Juliet Guo for her ethically sourced Shanghai-based brand that also helps to train, educate and empower workers in Inner Mongolia.
Before attendees stepped back out into the traffic-snarled streets caused by the 79th General Assembly of the United Nations, they watched another runway show. For the first time in the U.S., Wang Feng Couture debuted on the catwalk with elaborate gowns and shimmery metallic dresses. Kan enthused about the designer in her introductory remarks.
Other designers in the crowd included the jewelry designer Prince Dimitri of Yugoslovia, who will be off to QVC in Pennsylvania for his on-air debut Thursday. The collection is inspired by the royal jewelry that is featured in his book “Once Upon a Diamond.” But he wanted to be at F4D for Sharon Bush, who has been a friend “forever” and “is such a role model,” he said. Another jewelry designer and furrier Helen Yarmak turned up to support Evangelou and said her own fur and jewelry designs are sustainable because they are meant to last and to be passed along through generations.
And Julia Haart, whom many know from the Netflix series “My Unorthodox Life,” was talking up her +Body by Julia Haart label, which will be sold at Macy’s and other retailers, as well as the Home Shopping Network for the first time starting in November. Designed to be size-inclusive with built-in cups ranging up to a size F cut, the company expects to more than double unit sales from 14,000 units, Haart said.
Another fan of F4D’s founder, Susan Gutfreund, said, “I love anything that promotes artists and artisans in New York City. Look at this [gesturing toward the extravagant Wang Feng gowns on the runway],” she said. “I’m a New Yorker. I’ve become a New Yorker. I just believe in promoting anything [artistic] that’s in my city. But also, I’ve grown up internationally.”
Jean Shafiroff, one of last year’s F4D honorees, spoke with WWD about how the fact that the fashion industry employs hundreds of millions around the world can be double-edged. “As much as we need to conserve, we also need to purchase so those people will remain employed. Changing fashion so that it’s more eco-friendly, and making sure that conditions for women and for animals [in the supply chain] are not violated is vitally important, and that’s happening.”
