Since 1969, the Accademia of Costume aand Fashion awards the Irene Brin Prize to a young and talented stylist. Irene Brin, a journalist and writer, loved the young and always did her utmost to stimulate their success. Therefore, this Award to a fashion designer of the new generation is a means of celebration for the Accademia and represents the affirmation of a new talent.

Born in Bordighera in 1914, Irene Brin was the initiator of a light and well-read journalism, of gossip columns and costume.

For twenty years Irene Brin represented the aristocratic world of new fashion that blossomed after the confusing and tragic war period with a few brave men who improvised as tailors and merchants. The first kind ambassador of the new Italian Fashion was brought abroad.

Many of the great designers owe her part of their good fortune. She had contributed generously with her delicate presence, her elegant and witty pen, her intuition and her own unique style. We all owe something for her acclaims that had an inestimable value.

Irene Brin disappeared in 1969 and Rosana Pistolese, founder of the Accademia of Costume and Fashion, realised that, along with her, a magical world that she had partly created and that had become her idol were gone too.

“She was an exquisite writer and a brilliant journalist and particularly devoted herself to the studies of Costume and Fashion since the early postwar years. She immediately understood that, after the inevitable end of war, a new fashion could bring back continuity to costume and create new resources for our Nation. For twenty years Irene Brin represented the aristocratic world of new fashion that blossomed after the confusing and tragic war period with a few brave men who improvised as tailors and merchants. The first kind ambassador of the new Italian Fashion was brought abroad. Together with Emilio Pucci and Gian Battista Giorgini, Irene Brin was the attentive collaborator, the interpreter, the elegant propagator of Italian fashion in the world. 
She worked until the last days of her life and brought with her the kind secret and the actual truth of twenty years of costume.”  (Rosana Pistolese)

As a demonstration of the affection that bound her to the Accademia, Irene Brin wanted to donate her precious collection of Harper’s Bazaar. The first number of the collection is dated 1867.