“You never know with these things—it’s such an emotional process,” he said of the last few months. “Sometimes I think I might have it in the bag and then they’re like, ‘Girl…no!’ But I’m surprised tonight,” he said, elated. “I wanted it so badly and it felt so right, but that sometimes just leads to greater disappointment. I tried to just put one foot in front of the other and apply what I learned into the final presentation.”
The first person who made their way from the crowd to congratulate the designer on his major moment was selection committee member, the model-turned-activist Bethann Hardison. Still visibly in awe from the announcement, it took Mohammed a minute to realize he was posing with his award upside down.
The program’s additional participants, Angie Marei, David Perry, Ian Delucca, Hi Vu, Maggi Simpkins, Malyia McNaughton, Marvin Linares, Pamela Zamore, and Symoné Currie had flown in from all over for the special cocktail soirée. Fact files and glimpses of their respective backstories and design leanings decorated the walls around the room, allowing editors, designers, best-dressed list fixtures, and stylists to get better acquainted with these new names.
Over glasses of Ruinart champagne, glamorous content creators Jessica Wang, Hannah Bronfman, and Tina Leung swapped notes on their jewelry selections. Lauren Santo Domingo, artistic director of the Tiffany Home Category, was chicly toting an Elsa Peretti bean clutch in her hand. Star architect Peter Marino, who spearheaded the mammoth redesign of The Landmark in recent years, also popped in to say hello.
Drinking it all in, Mohammed was surrounded by well-wishers, including his co-participants on the program, who flitted up to say congratulations. “I remember watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s when I was sketching all the time,” he recalled. “I was looking at Givenchy and seeing all this beauty, thinking to myself, ‘How can I be part of that world?’ I went to boarding school in New England. And all I wanted was to one day go south to New York so I could show them what I got!”
Last night, they definitely got it.
