Erykah Badu Celebrated as Fashion Icon at CFDA Awards after Years of Pushing Boundaries

 Erykah Badu attends the CFDA Fashion Awards at the American Museum of Natural History on Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, in New York. (AP)
Erykah Badu attends the CFDA Fashion Awards at the American Museum of Natural History on Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, in New York. (AP)
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Erykah Badu Celebrated as Fashion Icon at CFDA Awards after Years of Pushing Boundaries

 Erykah Badu attends the CFDA Fashion Awards at the American Museum of Natural History on Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, in New York. (AP)
Erykah Badu attends the CFDA Fashion Awards at the American Museum of Natural History on Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, in New York. (AP)

Erykah Badu was bestowed the fashion icon award by the Council of Fashion Designers of America, playfully saying it was an honor she’d been hoping to get most of her life.

Wearing a headdress of jewels and a Thom Browne jacket, Badu accepted the award Monday night in Manhattan, and said she’s been trying to win the icon award since she was 6 years old. Badu described dressing up as a sport, therapy and her husband.

Andre 3000 brought out an orange caution cone to the stage as he introduced Badu, who is the mother of his son.

“The world is a private joke between me and my things,” she said. Andrew 3000 took the cone as he walked off with Badu.

The Grammy Award winner has become one of the great fashion disruptors of red carpets over the years, shaking up black tie conformity with her own Afro-centric style of tall hats and headwraps, oversized jewelry and talismans and layers of patchwork fabric adorned with accents that move and make music.

The CFDA Fashion Awards were held at the American Museum of Natural History at a ceremony that attracted celebrities like Katie Holmes and Kylie Jenner, designers and fashion industry giants to honor the best in design. Star of the movie “Wicked” Cynthia Erivo hosted the evening in a Zac Posen hooded gown.

The final award of the night went to Rachel Scott of Diotima for womenswear designer of the year. Scott was overwhelmed with emotion while accepting her award and thanked her mother and the women in Jamaica, where she is from, who crochet her designs.

“I’ve spent so much of my career on design teams so I’m really unaccustomed to this recognition,” she said.

Scott, known for her exquisite knit designs, was awarded the emerging designer of the year award in 2023.

Popstar Troye Sivan presented the menswear designer of the year award to Willy Chavarria, making this his second menswear win.

This year, Chavarria was up against Mike Amiri of Amiri, Emily Adams Bode Aujla of Bode, Thom Browne and Todd Snyder for the award.

Actor Molly Gordon and designer Brandon Maxwell presented the award for emerging designer of the year award to Russian-born designer Henry Zankov, who is known for his colorful knitwear. (Maxwell as a previous emerging designer winner.) Other contenders for the honor were Presley Oldham of Presley Oldham, Tanner Richie and Fletcher Kasell of Tanner Fletcher, Jackson Wiederhoeft of Wiederhoeft and Connor McKnight.

Celebrity duo Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie teamed up to present the award for accessory designer of the year to Raul Lopez of Laur. Lopez said the win is for everyone like him, who grew up the child of immigrants.

“I’m just a vessel in this industry to guide the kids that come after me to see they can do it to,” he said.

Lopez beat out nominees Ana Khouri, Stuart Vevers for Coach, Catherine Holstein for Khaite and Tory Burch.

Another icon shaking up the fashion industry, Daniel Roseberry of Schiaparelli was honored as the international designer of the year.

Roseberry’s designs have been dominating red carpets with Schiaparelli’s unconventional couture and surrealist pop of gold embellishments. Actor Nicole Kidman stunned at the Venice Film Festival when she walked the carpet in one of Schiaparelli’s couture corseted looks with beaded fringe and a deconstructed neckline.

Roseberry is the first American to lead a French couture company.

Other honors of the night included the Amazon Innovation Award which was awarded to Stuart Vevers with Coach, famed photographer Annie Leibovitz received the media award and the positive change award went to Michael Kors.

Designer Stephen Burrows was honored at the event with the lifetime achievement award. Burrows was one of the five US designers who competed in the 1973 “Battle of Versailles” fashion show.

With her latest award, Badu now joins the ranks of celebrities like Serena Williams, Kim Kardashian and Zendaya who previously took home the “fashion icon” title.



UK Retailer Next Expects to Join 1 Billion Pound Profit Club

Signage on the exterior of a Next clothing retail store is seen in London, Britain, March 25, 2023. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo
Signage on the exterior of a Next clothing retail store is seen in London, Britain, March 25, 2023. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo
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UK Retailer Next Expects to Join 1 Billion Pound Profit Club

Signage on the exterior of a Next clothing retail store is seen in London, Britain, March 25, 2023. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo
Signage on the exterior of a Next clothing retail store is seen in London, Britain, March 25, 2023. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo

Next said on Wednesday it expected to report annual profit in excess of 1 billion pounds ($1.3 billion) for the first time in its history, underscoring the success of the British clothing retailer.
The group raised its outlook again after a better-than-expected 7.6% rise in third quarter to Oct. 26 full-price sales, driven by the early arrival of colder weather this year, versus an unusually warm September and early October last year, Reuters reported.
Breaking through the 1 billion pound profit mark would cap Next's position as one of the best run retailers in Britain, having found a successful recipe combining more than 800 stores in the UK and Ireland and nearly 8 million online customers.
It also has nearly 2 million overseas customers buying through its website and many more who buy its products via third party websites, or so-called aggregators.
The strong performance, which puts it in the ranks of supermarket Tesco and clothing and food retailer Marks & Spencer as British retailers to have made a profit of over 1 billion pounds, has sent its shares up by 47% over the last year, hitting a record high in September.
The company, which is considered a useful gauge of how consumers are faring, raised its guidance for the fourth quarter by 1 percentage point to 3.5%. It was the third increase to its outlook in four months.
It said the improved sales in the third quarter along with its forecast for the fourth quarter added 43 million pounds to full-price sales and 10 million pounds to profit.
That took its profit guidance for the 2024-25 year from 995 million pounds to 1.005 billion.
Official data published earlier this month showed UK retail sales unexpectedly rose in September. However, other retailers have said shoppers remained nervous about spending on discretionary items ahead of the new Labour government's budget statement later on Wednesday.