Welcome to my auction - Up for your consideration is this Florida estate, Fashion Academy Gold Medal Award for excellence of design. This 1950 award went to the Crosley, 'Shelvador', the only refrigerator ever to receive the award. The medal appears to gold plated brass - obverse has the academy logo with laurel wreath and 1950 on the ribbon banner and reads "*Shelvador* Fashion Academy Gold Medal Award Winner". The reverse has a horseshoe with "Pace setting ideas are coming from Crosley" and reads “I Believe in Luck The Harder I Work the More I Have". Crosley had a varied history of manufacturing including appliances with the first Shelvador coming out in 1933.

The award was the creation of Emil Alvin Hartman, founder and director of Manhattan’s Fashion Academy. Hartman handed out awards for “exemplifying the best in American design” starting in 1928 with a list of best dressed women in public life, theater and cinema and went on to include: Ford, Motorola, Ronson lighters, General Electric (for a plastic furniture covering), Kaiser-Frazer, Elgin, Parker, United Air Lines (for its Mainliner interiors), Packard, the Chicago Tribune (for “being inspirational to students of design”). Hartman founded the Academy circa 1920 and operated under his direction, along with his wife, until his death in 1951.


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CONDITION - The award is in nice, vintage, pre-owned condition! Original estate found patina showing some normal age/use surface wear, nice relief, plate/rub wear especially on reverse, I have not cleaned it. Please see photos as part of description and condition.

SIZE - It measures approximately 38mm across, 2mm thick.