Designer, activist Kenneth Cole to headline Black Tie Dinner in November

by Tammye Nash of Dallas Voice

Designer and AIDS activist Kenneth Cole will be the keynote speaker at the 2008 Black Tie Dinner, BTD board officials announced this week.

Dinner officials also announced that the LGBT cable television and online media outlet Logo will receive the 2008 BTD Media Award. Logo is part of MTV Networks that operates channels such as VH-1, MTV, TV Land and Spike TV.

In a written statement announcing the choice of the keynote speaker, BTD co-chair Randy Ray said dinner organizers “consider Kenneth Cole one of the most engaging — and engaged — business leaders/activists in the country.”

He added, “It is an honor and a privilege to have Kenneth Cole, a figure on the front line of fashion trends, AIDS awareness and social activism, as our 2008 keynote speaker.”

Cole first took a public stand in the battle against AIDS in 1985, and is widely considered the first in the fashion industry to do so. He has continued to use his position in the fashion industry and his business, Kenneth Cole Productions Inc., to bring awareness to not just AIDS-related causes but a wide range of socially conscious issues, including homelessness, gun safety and women’s rights.

He is also known for sometimes-controversial ad campaigns for his lines of clothing, shoes and accessories intended to bring attention to the causes important to him. One example was his World AIDS Day campaign in 2005 in which introduced a line of t-shirts reading, “We All Have AIDS” and “I Have AIDS.”

Cole said he hoped that people who did not have AIDS would wear the shirts, as well as those who did have the virus, to help lift the stigma often associated with the disease.

In his current fashion ad campaign, Cole has replaced professional models with “everyday” people in a series of photographs and videos with the tagline, “We All Walk in Different Shoes.” The ad campaign is intended to dispel social prejudices while extolling the value of diversity.

Among those featured in the campaign are a lesbian couple, Nicoletta and Joanna, and their daughter, Ruthie, as well as a transgender woman named Nina Poon.

Cole is a board member for the Council of Fashion Designers of America and The Sundance Institute, and he is a founding board member of HELP, USA, the largest provider in the country of housing and services for the homeless.

Cole has also been on the board of the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amFAR) for several years and was recently elected co-chair of the amFAR board.

According to a statement released by amFAR, Cole has “made one of the single most remarkable philanthropic commitments in contemporary America, a commitment that breaks down the barriers between the public interest and corporate sectors and between deeply held personal values of equity and justice and day-to-day business concerns.

“In doing so, he proves that a social conscience and business acumen are not mutually exclusive and provides a role model for a new kind of corporate philanthropy.”

Cole started Kenneth Cole Productions in 1982. According to Wikipedia, the designer wanted to preview his new line of shoes at New York’s Market Week at the Hilton Hotel that year, but couldn’t afford a suite at the hotel.

He asked about getting permission to park a trailer two blocks from the Hilton, but when he was told that trailer permits were given only to utility companies and production companies, Cole changed the name of his company from Kenneth Cole Inc. to Kenneth Cole Productions Inc., and applied for a permit to make the feature film “The Birth of a Shoe Company.”

Cole got his permits and in two days, sold 40,000 pairs of shoes while at the same time capturing the origins of his company on film.

Since the company went public in June 1994, Kenneth Cole Productions has been on Forbes’ annual list of the World’s 200 Best Small Companies in America four times. It has also been named to Business Week’s list of Top Hot Growth Companies several times.

Cole himself is the founder, president and CEO of the company, which includes lines shoes, clothing and accessories for men and women.

Media award winner

BTD co-chair Laurie Foley called Logo a “pioneering” TV and online media outlet, saying the company’s participation “rounds out this year’s dinner as one of the most empowering, educational and entertaining events in our history.”

She added, “This lineup promises to make the 2008 Black Tie Dinner an experience like no other and therefore a draw to the entire North Texas community. This is very important, because in economic times such as these, the beneficiaries look to funding from Black Tie Dinner more than ever.”

Brian Graden, president of entertainment for MTV Networks Music Group and president of Logo, will attend the dinner to accept the award, presented in recognition of increased awareness of LGBT issues in the media.

MTV Networks launched Logo in 2005 as a basic cable channel with original programming, news and movies for LGBT viewers. Officials said Logo is now available in 33 million homes, while LOGOonline.com offers the world’s largest collection of LGBT-themed video online along with a federation of Web sites targeting an LGBT audience including AfterEllen.com, AfterElton.com, DowneLink.com, NewNowNext.com and 365Gay.com.

Logo programming includes Sordid Lives: The Series, Shirts & Skins and Rick and Steve, as well as a show about coming out stories, music videos, special news features, short gay films, LGBT-interest movies and popular shows such as Queer as Folk, Tales of the City and AfterEllen.com Presents: The L Word.

The 2008 Black Tie Dinner will be held Nov. 22 at the Sheraton Dallas Hotel, formerly the Adam’s Mark Hotel, in downtown Dallas.

Rebecca Covell and Phil Johnson will receive the Kuchling Humanitarian Award at the event, and Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson will receive the Elizabeth Birch Equality Award.

Individual and corporate sponsorships are available now, beginning at $4,000 a table. The Ticket Sales and Table Captain Happy Hour for individual table and ticket sales will be held Sept. 9 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at The Bronx restaurant.

For information, go online to www.blacktie.org or call 972-733-9200.