NEW YORK — Steven Kolb, the newly appointed executive director at the Council of Fashion Designers of America, may consider himself a little bit of a fashion outsider, but he sure is a quick study.
The CFDA board unanimously voted him into the job on Monday, and only a day later, he already knew how he was going to celebrate — by buying his miniature pinscher, Desi, a dog sweater for the holidays. But for Kolb, it can’t be just any old sweater anymore: He decided he would go for a Bark Jacobs one, designed by Marc Jacobs.
While the new executive director may not have a traditional fashion background, the industry is not completely unfamiliar territory. Kolb, who has been executive director of MTV International’s Staying Alive Foundation, spent 14 years at the nonprofit Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS organization where, as senior associate director, he worked closely with several fashion designers to raise money with events such as VIVA Glam Casino and Dining by Design.
Sitting in the CFDA offices on Broadway Tuesday afternoon, Kolb, who has a master’s degree in public administration from New York University, said he knew many of the board members from his years at DIFFA, from Kenneth Cole and John Bartlett to Dana Buchman and Kate Spade.
Kolb, 44, is the CFDA’s fourth executive director after Robert Raymond, Fern Mallis and Peter Arnold. In fact, Kolb knows Mallis from DIFFA, where she was a founding board member.
He grew up in Bergen County, N.J., but has been in New York for the last 15 years. He also keeps a country home in the Poconos. Wearing a pinstripe blazer, a striped shirt and jeans, Kolb seems comfortable in his skin. “He’s a Libra, he’s got to be nice,” joked Stan Herman, CFDA’s president.
Having just joined MTV in January, he admitted that finding a new job wasn’t on his radar at all, but he was intrigued by the opportunity when he got a call from the Karen Harvey Group, which conducted the search.
“It’s a dream job,” Kolb said. “To come to a major organization with such a history and be its executive director is everything I ever wanted.”
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As a fashion outsider, he hopes to be able to bring a fresh perspective to the council. So far, he has only attended one fashion show, by Bob Mackie — “and it wasn’t even in the tents,” he quipped — and the only time he attended the CFDA Awards was as a volunteer in the early Nineties, though it proved to be particularly memorable because he saw Audrey Hepburn that night.
“I don’t come from a fashion background,” he conceded. “I love fashion, but it’s not the core of my existence. I always wanted to look good. Even in fourth grade, I remember wearing an orange blazer with a white turtleneck. In high school, I had every color corduroy from Levi’s, and in college, I was obsessed with Willi Wear.”
Unlike Arnold, who seemed to have been born into his tailored suits, Kolb seems to be a casual dresser and, he sheepishly admitted, in his career, he has been asked on occasion to go home and change into something, well, more professional.
“Every designer wants to dress him now,” Herman said. “It’s going to be terrific. I wish they’d dress me.”
Kolb is expected to boost to the council’s fund-raising efforts, having honed his craft at nonprofit organizations. In fact, he and Herman both expressed their wishes to build an endowment for the organization and its foundation.
Kolb, who is expected to start in his new role on Jan. 9, also expressed much interest in the council’s educational initiatives, particularly in extending it from college level to include high schools. “You get a lot of high school kids interested in fashion,” Kolb said.
Kolb also said he would like to bring more technological aspects to the council.
“I’d love to see us develop the CFDA Web site, which is very informative. I’d like it to become more interactive. It would be cool, for instance, to develop a podcast.”
Kolb will meet with the staff next week, and next month, Donna Karan will host a party to introduce Kolb to CFDA members. Once in his new post, he immediately will start working on the CFDA Fashion Awards gala, which will take place in June.
For the moment, one of the first tasks will be to find himself an office desk. It’s become a bit of a CFDA trend for executive directors to take their desks with them. Finding one shouldn’t be too difficult — after all, he surely has a Rolodex full of contacts in the interior design world from his years at DIFFA.