Rachel Scott candidly admits that she had zero expectations of an American Womenswear Designer of the Year win at last Monday night’s 2024 Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) Awards in New York City. But fate and her industry peers were about to deliver the Jamaican designer’s three-year-old brand, Diotima, a seismic milestone. “I was totally overwhelmed with emotion: shock, gratitude, happiness, and just a surge of adrenaline,” Scott gushed to The Sunday Gleaner from The Big Apple.
“It wasn’t until the next day that I realised that I am the first black woman and Jamaican to have ever received this award. It’s humbling.” Announced as the womenswear winner by awards presenter Oscar-winning actress Da’Vine Joy Randolph at the celebrity-stacked ceremony held at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, Scott is, of course, still euphoric days after her unexpected triumph.
“I did not expect to win at all and was really just honoured to have been nominated. The other nominees are such major designers who I have the utmost respect for,” the Brooklyn resident designer told The Sunday Gleaner of her category competitors Marc Jacobs, Tory Burch, Thom Browne, and the Proenza Schouler duo of Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough. Scott walked away with the Emerging Designer of the Year honours last year.
With the annual CFDA ceremony a veritable calling card of the who’s who in fashion and this year’s A-list attendees including entrepreneur.
