Barbara Tfank is an American fashion designer, best known for designing the lavender Prada gown worn by Uma Thurman at the 67th Academy Awards.
A native of New York, Tfank is a graduate of Skidmore College and holds a masters from Stanford University.[1] She apprenticed with designer Sal Cesarani and worked as a costume designer for films,[2] including A Midnight Clear and Dream Lover.
She also worked as a stylist for Avedon, for Japanese TV[3] and as a design consultant for Prada. During her time with Prada, she designed the lavender dress that Uma Thurman wore at the 67th Academy Awards in 1995.[4]
Tfank started her own design line with a collection for Barneys in 2001. Since 2006, Tfank has shown her designs at New York Fashion Week; she has also shown at Houston Fashion Week.[5] She regularly collaborates with shoe designer Manolo Blahnik, sagafurs, and Shiseido.
Tfank's high-profile clients include First Lady Michelle Obama,[6] who wore a Tfank dress to meet Queen Elizabeth II on the Obama's official visit to the UK in 2011 and for the 2012 State of the Union Address, fashion writer Tatiana Hambro,[7] who wore a custom Tfank dress for her wedding, and singer Adele,[8] [9] who wore Barbara Tfank to the 2009 Grammys and the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards.
While working as a design consultant for Prada, Tfank was responsible for designing the lavender or lilac-colored Prada dress worn by Uma Thurman at the 67th Academy Awards on March 27, 1995. Bronwyn Cosgrave in her 2006 book Made For Each Other: Fashion and the Academy Awards describes the dress as being beautifully crafted and admired for weeks afterwards by the media.[10] The 2000 book Fashion: The Century of the Designer 1900–1999 credits the dress for opening up Prada in Hollywood saying, "...Uma Thurman appeared at the ceremony in a lavender gown and stole, catapulting herself onto magazine covers and bringing Prada to the attention of Hollywood."[11] [12] Variety magazine's 2003 Complete Book of Oscar Fashion described it as "the gown that launched a thousand imitations"; and indeed, a year later, Nicole Kidman wore a Prada dress of an identical colour at the 68th Academy Awards.[13] [14]