Fern Mallis - Career

Career

Fern Mallis is credited as the creator of Fashion Week in New York City in 1993, under the auspices of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), where she served as Executive Director for ten years. Known as 7th on Sixth, 'the event organized, centralized and modernized the American runways, allowing American designers to compete head-on with Milan and Paris, forever changing the global fashion business. IMG acquired 7th on Sixth in July 2001, and Mallis became Senior VP of IMG Fashion, leading new Fashion Weeks in Miami, Los Angeles, Berlin, Moscow, Mumbai, and added Sydney and Melbourne to its portfolio, among others.

While Senior VP of IMG Fashion, Mallis also served as IMG's global "Ambassador" and traveled to international fashion capitals to provide her expertise in creating and organizing fashion events and establishing international marketing and communications platforms. She has judged fashion shows and competitions around the world, and mentored fashion students on how to succeed in fashion careers. She is consistently and widely quoted in the fashion press and broadcast media, and frequently featured on televised fashion programs, including America's Next Top Model, She's Got the Look, four seasons of Project Runway, and as the weekly judge on Bravo's first season of The Fashion Show, with Isaac Mizrahi and Kelly Rowland. Mallis was also a consulting producer for The Fashion Show, and CW's network reality television series ReModeled.

While at the CFDA from 1991 to 2001, Mallis furthered the organization's original charter to promote American fashion as a "recognized branch of American art and culture." Mallis organized ten annual CFDA Fashion Awards Galas, was instrumental in the creation and worldwide licensing of Fashion Targets Breast Cancer - a campaign that has sold over $100 million in merchandise to date and has generated close to $100 million in donations for hundreds of breast cancer organizations worldwide. She oversaw two editions of the highly successful fundraiser 7th on Sale, which grossed more than $8 million for AIDS charities. Mallis also implemented the Foundation's burgeoning philanthropic goals to raise money for design scholarships and numerous other initiatives to benefit the designers and the industry at large.

A founding board member of the Design Industries Foundation Fighting Aids (DIFFA), Mallis also served on the Board of The Partnership for the Homeless and created their Furnish a Future program. She has also been instrumental in the creation and success of The Heart Truth's Red Dress Initiative for Women's Heart Disease. The Sidewalk Catwalk exhibition in NY’s Fashion district- an outdoor display of 32 mannequins created by the industry’s leading designers on Broadway from 35th Street to 42nd Street for three months in Summer 2010, was chaired by Mallis.

Mallis is the recipient of a great many industry awards and accolades. She’s received The Fashion Maverick Award from the American Apparel and Footwear Assoc.; Woman of the Year Leadership Award from Concern Worldwide; Fashion Legacy Award from the Fashion Chamber of Commerce Sate of Style Awards; A Special Award from Diversity Affluence Organization; Leadership Award from the Fashion Center BID. She was honored by Pratt Institute with the 2012 Fashion Industry Lifetime Achievement Award – presented to her by designer Calvin Klein. In May 2013, she gave the Fashion Institute of Technology’s keynote commencement address and was awarded with the rarely bestowed FIT President’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Mallis currently hosts the conversation series at New York's prestigious 92nd Street Y entitled Fashion Icons w/ Fern Mallis, featuring interviews with Calvin Klein, Norma Kamali, Donna Karan, Tommy Hilfiger, Tom Ford, Michael Kors, Diane von Furstenberg, Polly Allen Mellen, Marc Jacobs, Betsey Johnson, Vera Wang, Suzy Menkes, and most recently- the legendary Oscar de la Renta. In addition to her 92nd Street Y series, she hosts Fashion Insiders w/Fern Mallis on Sirius XM's flagship celebrity talk channel – STARS, interviewing the best and brightest in the fashion industry, notably featuring her now indispensable Fashion Week shows, with daily on-the-go coverage and backstage interviews. In January 2012, she made her theatre stage debut in the Off-Broadway production of Nora & Delia Ephron’s Love, Loss, and What I Wore. In February 2012, she launched her globally inspired FERN FINDS: jewelry line which is currently featured on HSN, and HSN.com.

Fern Mallis is President of her own leading international fashion and design consultancy – Fern Mallis LLC. She’s on the Board of Directors for Robert Graham in New York, and Tara Jewels in Mumbai, India. She’s consultant to Charleston Fashion Week, Seoul Fashion Week, and has served as Executive Advisor to Concept Korea for NYFW. Mallis serves on Advisory Boards for AhaLife, and Industrial Revolution II, among others, and she’s on the Steering Committee for NYCxDesign Week. She’s a frequent guest speaker to industry organizations and design schools worldwide.