Honoring Don M. Wilson III

Don M. Wilson, III served from 2000-2020 as a Director and former Vice Chairman of the Goodwill NYNJ Board of Directors. Mr. Wilson retired from JP Morgan Chase & Co. in 2006 where he had served as the Bank’s first Chief Risk Officer after leading for many years the Bank’s Global Trading Division. He began his career in the management training program at Chemical Bank in New York in 1973 and later held senior executive positions in New York, Tokyo, and London. He was a member of JP Morgan's Executive Committee and Operating Committee. From 2008-2020 he served on the Board of the Bank of Montreal, Canada’s oldest banking institution, where he was Chair of the Board’s Risk Review Committee. Mr. Wilson graduated cum laude with an AB degree from Harvard University in 1970 and received an MBA degree from the Tuck School at Dartmouth College in 1973. Mr. Wilson, a native of Ravenna, Ohio, has served in senior volunteer positions at the Harvard College Fund, where he has served as the Class of 1970 Reunion Gift Chair for more than twenty years, and at Tuck School at Dartmouth College, where he served as an Overseer for ten years. He is a former Trustee of St. Bernard’s School and the Brick Presbyterian Church, both in Manhattan. Mr. Wilson has been a long-standing member of the Museum & Archives Committee of the United States Golf Association where he is also a Founding Trustee of the USGA Foundation.
Hosted by Amber Valletta, Actress, Model and Activist

Amber Valletta, model, actress and activist, is committed to advancing smarter consumption and environmental awareness through exciting entrepreneurial endeavors and brand partnerships. A fashion icon, she has been the face of some of the most prestigious names in fashion and graced countless magazine covers. After moving to Los Angeles, Valletta found success as an actress, with credits that include Hitch, What Lies Beneath, and the hit TV show Revenge. She founded Master & Muse, the premiere lifestyle platform for responsibly made, cutting-edge fashion. Amber co-founded A Squared Films, creating content to entertain, educate and inspire social change. Producing credits include Driving Fashion Forward for L-studio and Reinventing Power for The Sierra Club.
Amber serves as an advisor to One x One, The Conscious Design Initiative in partnership with the UN. She is the FIT Sustainability Education Ambassador and FIT Foundation board member. Amber is currently the first ever named Sustainability Contributing Editor for British Vogue.
Hosted by Fern Mallis, The Godmother of Fashion

Hailed as the award-winning creator of New York Fashion Week, Fern Mallis has been called an industry titan, doyenne, and The Godmother of Fashion. As the creator and host of premiere conversation series Fashion Icons w/Fern Mallis at New York’s prestigious 92nd Street Y, Mallis assembled an incredible roster of guests for her now signature in-depth interviews, including Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, Tommy Hilfiger, Tom Ford, Michael Kors, Diane von Fürstenberg, Polly Mellen, Marc Jacobs, Vera Wang, Oscar de la Renta, André Leon Talley, Bruce Weber, Bill Cunningham, Valentino, Leonard A. Lauder, Tim Gunn, Victoria Beckham, Rosita and Angela Missoni, Alexander Wang, Russell Westbrook, Bob Mackie and Christian Louboutin, to name just a few.
Mallis is widely and consistently photographed and quoted in the fashion press and broadcast media. She has been frequently featured on televised fashion and news magazine programs, including Project Runway, America’s Next Top Model, She's Got the Look, Bloomberg TV, and was a host with Isaac Mizrahi and Kelly Rowland on The Fashion Show. She is continuously featured on many podcasts, radio shows, and fashion industry news outlets.
Mallis is the recipient of a great many industry awards and accolades. She’s received the Fashion Maverick Award from American Apparel and Footwear Association, Woman of the Year Leadership Award from Concern Worldwide, Fashion Legacy Award from the Fashion Chamber of Commerce State of Style Awards, Special Award from the Diversity Affluence Organization, and the Leadership Award from the Fashion Center BID, among others. She was honored by Pratt Institute with their 2012 Fashion Industry Lifetime Achievement Award – presented to her by designer Calvin Klein. In May 2013, she was presented with the rarely bestowed Fashion Institute of Technology President’s Lifetime Achievement Award, delivering the keynote commencement address. She’s been featured in the BoF (Business of Fashion) 500: The People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry, and in 2014 was inducted into the first BoF 500 Hall of Fame. In 2018, Fern was awarded with the Humanitarian Award by the David Lynch Foundation during their annual Women of Vision Luncheon.
A founding board member of the Design Industries Foundation Fighting Aids (DIFFA), Mallis also served on the Board of The Partnership for the Homeless and created their Furnish a Future program. She was also instrumental in the creation and success of The Heart Truth's Red Dress Initiative for Women's Heart Disease. The “Sidewalk Catwalk” themed exhibition in NY’s Fashion district — an outdoor display of 32 mannequins created by the industry’s leading designers on Broadway from 35th Street to 42nd Street during the summer of 2010, was chaired by Mallis. She was instrumental in the creation and worldwide licensing of Fashion Targets Breast Cancer — a campaign that has generated well over $100 million in donations for hundreds of breast cancer organizations worldwide. She oversaw two editions of the highly successful fundraiser "7th on Sale," which grossed more than $8 million for AIDS charities. Mallis has also raised considerable money for design scholarships and numerous other initiatives to benefit designers and the industry at large.
Former Senior VP of IMG Fashion, Mallis served as IMG's "Ambassador" and traveled to international fashion capitals to provide her expertise in creating and organizing fashion events and establishing international marketing and communications platforms. She has judged fashion shows and competitions around the world, and mentored fashion students on how to succeed in fashion careers. As former Executive Director of the Council of Fashion Designers of America from 1991 to 2001, she furthered the organization's original charter to promote American fashion as a "recognized branch of American art and culture.” She also organized 10 annual CFDA Fashion Awards Galas.
Mallis is currently President of her own fashion and design consultancy, formed to "advise, consult and create,” working with international and domestic fashion, lifestyle and design companies on branding, image, creative business strategies, and event production. She is on the Board of Directors for FIT Foundation in New York.
Featuring guest appearances from “upcycling” fashion designers:

Tracy Reese
Tracy Reese is an American designer whose signature rich, daring colors and unique prints are crafted into joyful, feminine clothing and accessories for the modern woman. Tracy Reese’s design philosophy is rooted in a commitment to bringing out the beauty in women of all shapes, sizes and colors. Tracy Reese creates fresh designs perfect for the confident, sophisticated woman. Her distinct point of view has also made her a celebrity favorite. Tracy Reese launched her namesake fashion brand in 1998 in New York City and over the past twenty plus years, she has expanded to include three sub-brands (Plenty, Frock! And Black Label), brick-and-mortar stores in NY and Tokyo and partnerships with stores from Barney’s and Nordstrom to Anthropologie. In 2009, First Lady Michelle Obama wore a custom Tracy Reese gown to the DNC. Other notable fans of the brand include Sarah Jessica Parker, Tracee Ellis Ross and Oprah Winfrey.
A member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America since 1990, Tracy Reese serves as Vice-Chair of its Board of Directors and Chair of the Black Advisory board. Tracy also serves on the boards of NEST Artisan Guild and College for Creative Studies Fashion Accessories Design Program. Tracy is a champion for many organizations and social causes including Planned Parenthood, Jackets for Jobs, Garden of Dreams, Bottomless Closet and Hearts of Gold. She is an advocate for HIV/AIDS charities and served on the AIDS Fund Committee for the New York Community Trust for five years. She is also part of the Turnaround Arts, a Kennedy Center program that transforms schools through the strategic use of the arts.
Tracy Reese is evolving and has pivoted toward a more sustainable path. Tracy recently moved her design studio to her hometown, Detroit, plugging into the resurgence happening there while actively participating in plans to make Detroit a modern, sustainable garment production hub. Tracy recently served as president of the board of ISAIC, the Industrial Sewing and Innovation Center, a Detroit based, industry shifting factory and Institute anchored in human-centric manufacturing. Tracy is currently working to build an artisan studio in Detroit creating economic opportunities for women in under-served communities.
In 2019, Tracy launched Hope for Flowers by Tracy Reese, a responsibly designed and produced collection. Part of HFF’s mission is to create positive social impact by empowering women and young people through arts programming in public schools and collaboration with local artisans in Detroit.
Tracy Reese has been a dominate force in the contemporary fashion industry for twenty years. Now, in a world with an increasingly fragile natural ecosystem, she’s laying a path to dominate -- sustainably -- for the next twenty.

Greg Lauren

Yeohlee Teng
“Clothes have magic. Their geometry forms shapes that can lend a wearer power” – Yeohlee Teng.
Award-winning designer Yeohlee Teng was born in Malaysia and is based in New York City, where she established her house, YEOHLEE Inc, in 1981.
Yeohlee believes that design comes from serving a function and her design is refined through time and process. Her designs are driven by material, maximizing the use of each fabric by thoughtful consideration of weight, texture, color, cut and finishing. She believes that "Clothes have magic. Their geometry forms shapes that can lend a wearer power."
Yeohlee’s work has been featured in numerous exhibitions worldwide and is part of the permanent collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where curator Richard Martin called her “one of the most ingenious makers of clothing today. Yeohlee's clothes conserve and impart energy for they are the synthesis of reason and magic."
YEOHLEE’s Collection is – and has always been – designed, developed and produced in New York City. Made in New York has the advantage of a quick “just in time” response that is critical in todays’economy. This accessibity promotes efficiency, conserves time, energy and resources and ties in with Yeohlee’s zero waste philosophy.
YEOHLEE : WORK published in 2003 surveys the first 20 years of her practice with essays by prominent fashion, art and design curators and critics.
Yeohlee is the recipient of the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for Fashion 2004.
In 2010 YEOHLEE N Y, a Made in New York retail store was established in the Garment District.
Today the store and workroom is located at 12 West 29th Street in the NoMad/Flatiron neighborhood.
Benefit Committee
- Andrew Baehr
- Damodoram Bashyam
- David Belkin
- Katherine Black
- David Coquillette
- Michael Coyle
- David Duplantis
- Brian Fetherstonhaugh
- Henry Gooss
- Doug Hand
- Scott Harris
- Donald Huber
- Jeffrey Oke
- Beth Stankard
- Bill Staples
- Ron Thurston
- Kay Unger
- Deborah Weinswig
Sponsors
Job Creator Circle $50,000
- Mr. and Mrs. Don M. Wilson III
Beyond the Disabilities Circle $25,000
- Transwestern
- Global Trading Division
- Michael Davie
- Bob Flicker
- Tom Hoppe
- Rob Standing
- Bill Staples
- Mark Zarb
Access and Empowerment Circle $10,000
- Damodaram Bashyam
- Henry “Hank” Gooss
- HUB International
Fashion Forward Circle $5,000
- Brian Fetherstonhaugh
- Cigna HealthCare
- IceMiller
- Romy and David Coquillette
The Landfill Circle $3,000
- Beth Stankard
- David and Judy Belkin
- Don Huber and Mark Fontaine
- Jeffrey Oke
- Matter Real Estate
- Marsh & McLennan Agency
- Marks Paneth LLP
- Michael Coyle
The Friend Circle $1,500
- Deborah Weinswig
- Herbert Mines Associates
- Imperial Cleaning
- Katherine Black
- Vector Security Inc.
The Supporter Circle $500
- Thru Way Plumbing and Heating
- Upright Labs
Event Contacts
Sophia Amaro
samaro@goodwillny.org
347.924.5764
Angela Chen
achen@goodwillny.org
929.330.5354