Described as the designer of "Prada for the people," Kenneth Cole was born on March 23, 1954, in Brooklyn, New York. Cole’s father, Charlie, was the owner of Brooklyn-based shoe manufacturer that created the Candie's footwear line, which has been endorsed by Kelly Clarkson, Jenny McCarthy, Destiny's Child, and Ashanti.
Cole was educated at Atlanta, Georgia’s Emory University, during the mid-70s, and initially intended to study law. In the early 80s, he got his foot in the door of the fashion industry selling shoes out of the back of a forty-foot trailer in Midtown Manhattan. Because parking permit restrictions prohibited him from operating a retail business from his vehicle, he changed his company name from Kenneth Cole, Inc. to Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc., and applied for a permit to shoot a film called: The Birth of a Shoe Company. Cole parked his trailer across the street from the New York Hilton Hotel, and sold a reported 40,000 pairs of shoes in less than three days.
Knowing that it was easier to get credit from factories in Europe, Cole traveled to Europe to design his collection of shoes, and then returned to the U.S. to sell them. Meanwhile, Cole continued to carry on with the company’s covert film operation, using models as actresses. Today, the company is still named Kenneth Cole Productions, in honor of Cole’s clever resourcefulness and the unique origin of the company. Today, Kenneth Cole Productions internationally manufactures and carries men's and women's footwear, accessories, and clothing under the labels Kenneth Cole, Reaction, and Unlisted.
Cole has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Creative Coalition Spotlight award, the Devine Design's Humanitarian of the Year, CFDA's award for Humanitarian Excellence, the Mothers' Voices Extraordinary Voice award, Council of Foundations Humanitarian Leadership award, Footwear News Person of the Year, FFANY's Fashion Medal of Honor award, Amnesty International Media Spotlight award, and the T. Kenyon Holly award.
In 1987, Cole married Maria Cuomo, daughter of former New York Governor, Mario Cuomo. This association to politics led Cole to meet and befriend members of the Kennedy clan and the Clintons, and Cole is one of Bill Clinton’s golfing buddies.
Cole describes his footwear fashions as "products you can wear today and tomorrow from season to season. You want to look modern without being too edgy, and you always want value. I mean, you can buy a pair of shoes for a dollar, but if you never wear them you've paid too much."
Cole’s commitment to humanitarian causes includes serving on the boards of both AmFAR: The American Foundation for AIDS Research since 1985, as well as the HELP U.S.A. Homeless project since 1987.
YUDDY
