FIT to Honor Costume Designer Willa Kim

The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) will honor renowned costume designer Willa Kim with the 2003 Patricia Zipprodt Award for Innovative Costume Design in a ceremony to be held at Sardi’s on Monday, April 28.

Kim is the recipient of Tony, Emmy, Drama Desk, and Obie Awards for her costume designs, which have been used in such Broadway and Off-Broadway shows as Victor/Victoria, Grease!, The Will Rogers Follies, Legs Diamond, Song and Dance, Dancin’, Goodtime Charley, Promenade, and Have I Got a Girl for You!. In 1999, she received the TDF Irene Sharaff Award for Lifetime Achievement in Costume Design.

The award winning scenic and costume designer Tony Walton will present the Zipprodt award to Kim. The ceremony will include tributes and performances by Cady Huffman, Betty Comden, Anne Runolfsson, and Priscilla Baskerville.

Also scheduled to be honored at the ceremony is Barbara Matera, who will posthumously receive the President’s Business Leadership Award. Matera was the owner and co-founder of Barbara Matera Limited, a premier theater costume house.