Kenneth Cole’s New Documentary Follows His Impact Beyond Fashion

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Kenneth Cole is getting the big-screen treatment! The designer’s new documentary, A Man with Sole: The Impact of Kenneth Cole, premiered to a fashionable crowd this week at The Paley Center For Media. Directed by Dori Berinstein, the film doesn’t just cover Cole’s fashion career—it also tracks his decades of working in social and cultural causes impacting the world.

“It wasn’t necessarily my project—I didn’t initiate it,” Cole exclusively told The Daily Front Row. “Somebody else did, and they’ve been working on it for a couple years, and it’s a great time for a story like this to come to life. I thought it was going to be more of a fashion story, but it’s actually more of a story about humanity and social impact, which I think is bigger at the end of the day than what we do in the ordinary course.”

Cole’s longtime work across AIDS research is notably highlighted in the film. In the ’80s, the pandemic’s devastating impact on the fashion industry—which included one of Cole’s own business associates—led the designer to launch his legendary ads aimed at destigmatizing the disease. His work as amfAR’s chairman, as well as a desire to raise awareness in AIDS’ early years when brands weren’t aligned with social causes, made a major impact in the fashion world and beyond.

“He almost invented cause-related marketing. He put himself out there,” Fern Mallis recalled on the premiere’s red carpet. “He put himself out there as a straight man ages ago, as chairman of amfAR, doing tons of ads about AIDS—and that kind of thing could really hurt a business. When Perry Ellis died of AIDS, the company would never talk about it because they thought people wouldn’t buy the clothes, and Kenneth just stood up for what was right. His billboards and his ads, the puns, one is more clever than the next. Every one of them is brilliant. I really respect that.”

The special evening had many guests reflecting on their memories with Cole over the years, including Donna Karan—who makes a cameo in the documentary, in addition to Mallis, Alan Cumming, Sam Edelman, and more fashion leaders.

“I would go to the shows when he was dealing with the AIDS epidemic, which I started [working in] as well from the fashion point of view,” said Karan. ” Then he really took it out there and brought it to attention. Then, Kenneth and I…I didn’t realize that he was in Haiti with me. In Haiti is where we really connected, in his soul.”

After the screening, both Cole and Berinstein sat down with Mallis to delve into their work together on the film. The pair also discussed Cole’s range of social causes, which is shown throughout the documentary—including homelessness, ableism, LGBTQIA+ representation, gender equality, safe social media usage, and more. Ultimately, Cole hopes that viewers don’t just see the film as a highlight reel of his decades-long fashion career‚ but rather an example to stand up for causes they believe in—and make an in whatever they do.

“Just that people reflect on it and we wonder,” Cole said. “It’s not the traditional way to do business. Hopefully, it’ll give people reason to contemplate what they do, why they do it, and to what degree.”

All images: Courtesy of Kenneth Cole

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