Accessory designer Rafe Totengco served as co-chair for the 10th Anniversary Cooper-Hewitt Design Awards Gala After Party held last October 22, 2009. The awards celebrate outstanding achievement in design across a variety of disciplines and were solicited from a committee of more than 2,500 designers, educators, journalists, cultural figures and corporate leaders from every state in the nation. Nominees possessed at least seven years of experience and winners were selected based on the level of excellence, innovation and public impact of their body of work.
The awardees this year included Francisco Costa for Calvin Klein Collection for Fashion Design, Tsao & McKown Architects for Interior Design, The New York Times Graphics Department for Communication Design and Bill Moggridge for Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Gala celebrating these awards is one of Cooper-Hewitt’s most important fundraisers of the year. For the first time in its existence the event was held at Cipriani 42nd Street instead of the museum itself, while the institution undergoes a large-scale renovation and expansion project. The change in venue allowed the after party to grow in scope and size. Rafe worked with the Cooper-Hewitt planning team and the after party committee to use the venue’s chapel section, adjacent to the main ballroom, and create an environment that complimented the gala, but had its own unique ambiance.
Committee members like Harry Allen, Dan Wood, Jen Mankins, Alex Bates and Christina Heekyoung Kang brought in the troops. The diverse list of co-chairs made the guest list equally ecclectic. Rafe's friends; Under The Arch actress Ariana Madix, PR diva Denise Kreft, Paul Phillips, Rafe's P.I.C. Steffanie Hyman, Muse Model Agency founder Conor Kennedy, designer China Young and Florist extraordinaire Bob Roberts came to support the event, showed off their Rafe bags, sipped cocktails and danced to the sounds of AndrewAndrew DJ while mingling with fellow design influencers.
Some very lucky guests also walked away with some amazing raffle prizes like a signed Eva Zeisel Granit collection "Cake and Tea" set, an extremely rare out-of-print signed hardcover edition of Syd Mead's Sentury, a signed Milton Glazer "I Heart NY" poster, a Aeron chair from Herman Miller, a limited edition table top sculpture "House" from Robert Wilson and an iPod Touch among other prizes.
