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On Wednesday, May 25, nearly 300 guests from the NYC fashion industry gathered at the Ritz-Carlton in Battery Park for the inaugural Fashion Ball: Dining in the Dark to honor fashion visionaries who have supported FFB’s urgent mission to drive research that will lead to preventions, treatments and cures for people affected by the spectrum of retinal degenerative diseases.
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Visionary Award Honoree Jill Granoff;
Foundation Fighting Blindness National
Trustee
and Dinner Chair Evan Mittman;
Visionary Award Honoree Rick Darling
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The dinner honored fashion executive Jill Granoff and Rick Darling, president of LF USA for their outstanding leadership and vision within the fashion industry and the retinal disease community.
Guests enjoyed the novel Dining in the Dark theme of the evening, eating their entrée in complete darkness and experiencing what it might be like to live with vision loss. Visually impaired servers, who were trained specifically for the dinner to use a system of ropes and stanchions, helped guests navigate through the experience. The dinner also featured a silent auction that raised more than $13,000 and musical performances by visually impaired musicians.
In addition to Visionary Award Honorees Rick Darling and Jill Granoff, many esteemed fashion executives were in attendance included fashion designer Vince Camuto, CEO of Lord and Taylor Brendan Hoffman, President of Cosmetic Executive Women Carlotta Jacobson, President of Licensing at Jones Apparel Group Mary Belle, CEO of B&G Plastics Chet Kolton, Principal of Deloitte Consulting Mitch Katcher, and President of Schifter + Partners Tim Schifter.
Thanks to the diligence and passion of dinner chair Evan Mittman of Cipriani Accessories and a dedicated dinner committee, the dinner raised nearly half a million dollars for retinal disease research.
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Carlotta Jacobson introduces Visionary
Award Honoree Jill Granoff
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Vince Camuto and Guest at the Foundation
Fighting Blindness Dining in the Dark event
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