Alum Cynthia Rowley to Receive CFDA Founder’s Award

Fashion designer and School of the Art Institute of Chicago alum Cynthia Rowley (BFA 1981) will be honored with the 2025 CFDA Founder’s Award, presented by Julianne Moore at the upcoming CFDA Awards in New York. The award recognizes Rowley’s enduring impact on American fashion through a career marked by creativity, independence, and an inventive balance of elegance and irreverence. Since launching her label in the 1980s, Rowley has built a global lifestyle brand spanning ready-to-wear, surf and swim, accessories, and home goods—staging runway shows that often blur the line between fashion and performance art.