Luminaries from the worlds of art and design lit up the Pratt Legends 2005 Scholarship Benefit Gala Dinner at Gotham Hall, raising $500,000 in scholarship funds for Pratt students. The Legends Awards, established by the Institute, recognize exceptional accomplishments in the fields of art and design.

Pratt President Dr. Thomas Schutte and Legends Chairs Marc Rosen and Juliana Curran Terian welcomed guests prior to the awards ceremony, hosted by CBS’s Dana Tyler.

Arlene Dahl accepted a Legends Award for theatre director, artist, and designer Robert Wilson (recuperating from a gall-bladder ailment in a Berlin hospital).

Via video, the ubiquitous Tom Ford, former creative director for Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, presented fashion designer Cathy Hardwick with her Legends Award, revealing that it was his ambition and dogged persistence—not his portfolio—that convinced his former boss and mentor to hire him. When accepting the honor, Hardwick admitted to the crowd, “It’s a little scary to be called a legend and not be bigger than life, like Tom Ford, or dead, like Coco Chanel.”

In his acceptance speech, jewelry designer Kenny Jay Lane confessed, “I always thought I was a legend. If you’re an only child, and you decide at age eight that you’re a legend, your parents have a bit of a problem.”

Other Legends recipients included billboard artist James Rosenquist and architect Helmut Jahn.

In the artistic circle: Mario Buatta, CeCe Cord, Carole McCarthy, Charles Mirotznik, Jane Powell and Dickie Moore, Catherine Hamilton, Kohle Yohannan, Gerald Tsai Jr., Michele Gerber Klein, George and Mariana Kaufman, Michael Vollbracht, Sharon Bush, Richard Turley, and Paula and Ken Wolfe. A finely drawn presentation of creative achievement!