Neiman Marcus was founded in 1907 to bring the best of European fashion to the fine folks of Texas. It became one of the most preeminent luxury stores in the United States. According to NMG CEO Geoffroy van Raemdonck, 117 years later, the retailer’s “raison d’etre is to have relationships with the best brands and to delight by offering the best fashion to the American customer.” The Neiman Marcus Awards, established 86 years ago and revived in 2023, celebrates those bonds. The 2024 recipients—Maria Grazia Chiuri, Creative Director of Women’s Haute Couture, Ready-To-Wear and Accessories Collections for Dior for the Neiman Marcus Award for Distinguished Service in the Field of Fashion; Daniel Roseberry, Creative Director of Schiaparelli, for the Neiman Marcus Award for Creative Impact in the Field of Fashion and Simon Porte Jacquemus, Founder and Creative Director of Jacquemus, for the Neiman Marcus Award for Innovation in the Field of Fashion—reiterate the tony retailer’s commitment to European fashion in the US.
Held at The Ritz, Paris, and in a different format than last year’s inaugural relaunched awards, von Raemdonck, along with Lana Todorovich, Chief Merchandising Officer, Neiman Marcus, spoke to FashionNetwork.com ahead of the evening festivities that brought the recipients along with fashion industry leaders and luminaries such as Diego Della Valle, Sidney Toledano, Delphine Arnault, Rick Owens, Anh Duong and Guram Gvasalia to gather for a cocktail and private seated dinner and awards ceremony.
“Every year, we honor the people who have, over the last couple of years, today and in the future, have/had an impact on fashion. This industry never rests, and we will see incredible things from these amazing winners in years to come,” said von Raemdonck, adding choosing such an equally stellar line for 2025 would be the group’s next task.
Considering the store’s place in fashion history (bringing prominent designers Stateside in the 1940s was undoubtedly novel), this year’s awards versus 2023, when Brunello Cucinelli, Jonathan Anderson, and Amina Muddi were recognized, was history repeating itself, save for the Dallas to Paris location swap as Christian Dior and Elsa Schiaparelli were previous winners.
The executives say this tracks.
“Think about Christian Dior receiving the award for his New Look after the war, which was revolutionary at the time. Since taking the helm at Dior in 2016, Maria Grazia is living up to those iconic historical codes and bringing her relevance to what is the New Look for today’s woman,” he said, adding Grazia Chiuri humbly shared the award with the female craftspeople and employees of Dior.
Todorovich added that the Dior creative director opened the representation of women in fashion to a more extensive dialogue. “Her commitment to sharing this platform with female creatives and emphasizing and supporting the advancement of women will live on. The goal is to make a better world for women everywhere; as a female co-founded and female-led organization, we share these values of women’s empowerment at Neiman Marcus and in the larger industry.” Like Cucinelli, who won the award the year before, Grazia Chiuri’s impact reaches beyond making beautiful fashion.
According to the NMG CEO, Daniel Roseberry’s recognition has everything to do with capturing the surrealistic connection from the house in a wardrobe made for today.
“Daniel has unrivaled creativity and craftsmanship and perfectly understands the intersection of art and its link to the Schiaparelli house. He brings it in a creative way centered at the heart of culture and bringing the dormant house to new heights. The success is blending art and couture and seeing the link of a surrealism exhibit two years ago in Paris. He is 100 percent connected to the creativity of art,” he said. If there was a prize for the most favored event attire, it was also Schiaparelli, as many of the Neiman Marcus leadership team and their sister brand’s team, Bergdorf Goodman, wore Roseberry’s creations.
Simon Porte Jacquemus was a natural choice for the innovation award that goes beyond innovative design. “Beyond that is innovative marketing, merchandising techniques, and social media from this self-taught designer who created one of the most imaginative businesses with one store,” von Raemdonck continued. The Jacquemus brand has an extensive online business and is reportedly worth hundreds of millions of euros.
Todorovich sums it up as each designer creating a once-in-a-generation moment, the first for creative expression and the other as an innovator leading the way to engage with the customer of the future. Recipients are at the apex of what they do in fashion and creativity and quickly accelerating—to wit, last year was a big one for Jonathan Anderson—and work well with the award program’s new MO that goes beyond the ceremony.
“We modernize our program to include what is behind it for an entire year; we take these designers and put the power and strength of our merchandising and marketing teams to accelerate their presence in the US with the most discerning luxury customers,” she added.
The executive duo sees the event as more than just honoring designers but a sort of fashion summit that allows a rare meeting of some of the most dynamic people in the industry both creatively and business-wise (one spokesman for the event likened it to a fancy “business dinner.”)
“It’s one of the rare events that brings together brands, powerful creatives, and business leaders united in one cause to celebrate the industry. If you look at the awards, they’re bigger than Neiman Marcus; they became fashion history. It’s transcended the luxury business, and to see them in one room solidifies and continues that history of uniting the industry,” the Neiman Marcus CMO said.
“We bring brand partners together in one room in Paris for now and the power of being together because great things happen when you bring creative forces together. There might be collaborations or a relationship that forms today,” von Raemdonck added.
Considering the second-time awards for Dior and Schiaparelli, which was purely coincidental according to the NMG CEO, looking to the past may indicate future year winners. An interesting observation was Rick Owens, who attended last year and was the only other star fashion designer in the room for the event.
“It does show the longevity of Neiman’s relationships; if you think about some of the brands, we have been partners for 75, even 100 years,” added Todorovich.
Also announced at the award ceremony is the retailer’s plan to expand its programming with the Fashion Scholarship Fund, an organization known for supporting US fashion designers and development. It begs the question of how or if, considering the change in the American designer and brand sector in the past 86 years, future iterations of the reimagined Neiman Marcus awards will extend the honors to American-based creatives and fashion labels.
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