Rachel Scott and Ralph Lauren are the CFDA American Designer of the Year During the evening, Anthony Vaccarello also received an award, and Hedi Slimane appears to be his biggest supporter

Last night, the CFDA Fashion Awards were held, an event, this year presented by Amazon Fashion, that honors the most influential voices in American fashion. The biggest winners of 2026 were Rachel Scott, founder of the brand Diotima and current creative director of Proenza Schouler, who took home the American Womenswear Designer of the Year Award, and Ralph Lauren, who won the American Menswear Designer of the Year Award. Scott, who beat out Catherine Holstein of Khaite, Tory Burch, and Wes Gordon of Carolina Herrera, had previously won the CFDA Emerging Designer of the Year award in 2023.

 

Ralph Lauren was competing against Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne of Public School New York, Thom Browne, Todd Snyder, and Willy Chavarria. This is not the first time that Ralph Lauren, founder of the empire that bears his name, has won the top CFDA prize: he was previously named Menswear Designer of the Year in 1996 and 2007, while he won the Womenswear Designer of the Year Award in 1995 and last year, in 2025.

 

 

In addition to the top two awards, the American Accessory Designer of the Year title was also announced, this year going to sculptor and jeweler Ana Khouri, who was nominated alongside Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen of The Row, Raul Lopez of Luar, Sophie Buhai, and Stuart Vevers of Coach. The Google American Emerging Designer of the Year was won by Colleen Allen, a New York-based designer and founder of her eponymous womenswear brand, who was nominated alongside Emily Dawn Long, Julia Ferentinos of Juju Vera, Julian Louie of Aubero, and Zane Li of Lii (winner of the CFDA Fashion Fund).

 

 

During the evening, Anthony Vaccarello was presented with the International Designer of the Year Award, a prize recognizing his remarkable decade-long tenure as creative director of Saint Laurent, up until the announcement this autumn of his departure from the Maison. The video of Vaccarello on the CFDA red carpet alongside his muses Rosé, Hailey Bieber, Anja Rubik, and Zoë Kravitz, shared by the American association on Instagram during the event, is the only piece of content reposted by Hedi Slimane's official account, a detail that did not go unnoticed among fans of the two designers, who immediately began speculating about the conversations the two creatives might be having behind closed doors about the state of the industry.