LITTLE KNOWN FACTS ABOUT MR HONOREES

We look forward to celebrating with you at this year’s exclusive MR Awards Dinner at Gotham Hall on July 15th. To get you acquainted with the honorees, we’re sharing a few fast facts about them, with much more to come in the July awards issue. We look forward to seeing you at the event to meet and greet in person!

Kenneth Cole, 2024 Humanitarian Award

• He launched his career out of a trailer, selling 40,000 pairs of shoes in three days.
• He’s famous for inspirational slogans, i.e., “What matters is what moves you.”
• He’s obsessed with finding a better way.
• He calls himself a low-handicap fisherman; i.e., his fishing skills are better than his golf game.
• He recently delivered the eulogy for his good friend Harry Belafonte.
• Through his Kenneth Cole Foundation, commitment to AIDS research, and Mental Health Alliance, he continues to change the world.

Alan Gibeley, Giblees, 2024 Specialty Store of the Year

• He’s one of 13 siblings.
• Starting in 8th grade, he began working with his dad in the store.
• He was a retailing major, marketing minor at Syracuse University.
• He’s often late and regularly misplaces his phone.
• He rarely accepts dinner invitations with vendors, even those he loves.
• Despite formidable competition in the Boston area, he’s built a uniquely successful store.

David Rubenstein, Rubensteins, 2024 Hall of Fame

• • He’s most proud of the store reaching a century in business.
  • He credits this milestone to his uncle and dad buying the real estate.
  • He considers himself the luckiest guy in the world to work with family.
  • He believes sellers should be on commission: “Let them make money!
  • He’s most grateful to his vendor partners for support during hurricanes.
  • His Top NOLA restaurant recommends: Galatoires (try their “Coute” mixed seafood appetizer with a different sauce for each fish) and Lilette (try whatever is their “fresh fish of the day”).

Ouigi Theodore, Founder & Creative Director, The Brooklyn Circus, Retail Brand of the Year

• Born in Haiti, his family moved to Brooklyn in the 1980s and returned to Haiti, eventually returning to New York City and the Crown Heights neighborhood.
• His first college major was religion.
• His mother bought and sold art, opening the “Pop Shop” of her time.
• His first store, One Race, was rooted in motorcycle apparel.
• All the art on the wall of his Canal Street location is his own work.
• He is inspired by Marcus Garvey, Beres Hammond, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, as well as Ralph Lauren, Thom Brown, Rick Owens, and Bob and Sheila Johnson.
• He has a 100-year plan for his business.

Al Leinen and Todd Epperley, Halls, 2024 Department Store of the Year

Al is the oldest of nine children, two in retailing.

• He loves the outdoors and working out: lifting weights, walking his rescue dogs.
• He is known and loved for his elevated taste level and easy-going personality.
• He credits his wife, Peggy, for tolerating his long retail hours for 3+ decades.
• He insists that you can sell just about anything if you believe in it.
  
  Todd started out in retail as a kid, helping his mom with her garage sales.
• He agonizes over how best to launch a profitable online business.
• He describes himself as a boring dresser.
• His favorite escape is a home in Puerto Vallarta that he shares with his partner.
• He is extremely thankful that Al is not ready to retire!

Erin Hawker, founder NY Men’s Day/Agentry PR, People’s Choice Award

• She believes that fashion is part of her DNA.
• She insisted her mom be properly attired to walk her to grade school.
• She’s a hands-on manager and works long hours.
• She’s an artist who builds outdoor sculpture, most recently a matchstick teepee.
• She loves weekends with her husband at their home in upstate NY.
• Her favorite thing is her 1973 Volkswagen Thing…named Beasley.
• Her NYC restaurant recommends: Shukette, Le Pavilion, Via Carota, and The Peak.

Dapper Dan, Designer and Entrepreneur, Vanguard Award

• He used to swim in the Harlem River
• He is Sherwin Williams’ creative director of The Loneliest Color (one of the brand’s most overlooked, least tinted hues)
• He used to write for a radical newspaper called Forty Acres and a Mule.
• His book, Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem: A Memoir is about the power of reinvention.
• His work was featured in MoMA’s ITEMS: Is Fashion Modern exhibit and displayed at the Smithsonian Institution, The Museum at FIT, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
• His mantra is, “I do not dictate fashion. I translate culture.”

George Feldenkreis, Chairman, Perry Ellis International, Lifetime Achievement Award

• • He loves dancing, boating, beaches, reading (especially history) and working!
  • He dislikes closed-minded people.
  • He speaks several languages, including Japanese.
  • Both his children work with him: Oscar, now running PEI, and Fanny in automotive parts.
  • He loves Cuban food: fried bananas, rice and beans (best prepared by Fanny!)
  • He was once voted MR’s most eligible bachelor. (Sorry, ladies, he’s now taken!)

For ticketing and advertising information, contact Charles Garone,
charles.garone@wainscotmedia.com.