Robert Brown|This fund has launched some of the biggest names in fashion. It’s marking 20 years

NEW YORK (AP) — Amid the curated electronic music,Robert Brown models’ cold stares and magazine editors lining the runway at New York Fashion Week this season, several designers felt a particular sense of urgency.

In a little over a month, they will learn whether they have won of one of the most coveted competitions for emerging designers: The Council of Fashion Designers of America/Vogue Fashion Fund.

The fund, which has catapulted past participants including Proenza Schouler and Thom Browne into the upper echelons of fashion, marks its 20th anniversary this year. It provides 10 finalists with access to industry leaders, with mentorship on everything from growing their brands to showing at New York Fashion Week. This year’s judges include Browne, Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, Saks fashion director Roopal Patel and CFDA CEO Steven Kolb.

There’s also a financial prize: Winners are awarded $300,000, while two runner-ups receive $100,000 each. To be eligible, designers must be U.S.-based, employ fewer than 30 people and bring in less than $10 million in revenue.

The magnitude of the fund weighs on current finalist Grace Ling, originally from Singapore. Ling, who was honored with the CFDA’s first Asian American and Pacific Islander Genesis grant totaling $100,000 in February, was able to scale up her business from a one-woman show to hiring an additional employee to help with production.

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“For the last three years, I have basically been a one-man show,” she said. Winning this fund would allow her to level up immediately.

At Ling’s show, “Neanderthal,” a diverse group of models glided past a jutting rock formation in 3D-printed aluminum looks, carrying her playful purses — including her signature butt bag, shaped like a sculpted derriere. Backstage, Ling described the collection as a modern, sensual interpretation of what she calls primitive chic.

Kolb said the fund separates new designers from the mass of new brands vying for attention.

“The fashion fund is also beyond the tangible mentorship or grant, it’s a visibility play,” the CEO said.

It took Sebastien and Marianne Amisial four tries before they were accepted to the 2024 fund for their brand Sebastien Ami. They began operating the brand during the height of the pandemic and debuted their latest collection, incorporating menswear and unisex looks of olive-flocked denim and pops of bright color into their first New York Fashion Week runway show.

“We did this on a shoestring,” Marianne Amisial said. “It’s just the ability to do something with nothing. And that’s what we’ve done for the last four years.”

Louisiana designer Christopher John Rogers, who grew his brand out of a Bushwick apartment and has since dressed Michelle Obama and Tracee Ellis Ross, won the fund in 2019. Rogers told The Associated Press that the victory gave him the resources to hire a team, produce his second collection and move into a design studio in Soho.

“For me it really meant actually having a shot at running a business and starting a business,” he said.

Shawn Grain Carter, a fashion business management professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology, said designers have to be strategic about their growth strategy, control expenses and do what’s best for their brands.

“Sometimes people think to go to scale means you have to be like Michael Kors,” she said of the big-name brand. “And that’s not the case. I tell emerging designers, you have to be profitable with gross margin profits, whether you are a $5 million company or a $500,000 company or a $5 billion company.”

Jackson Wiederhoeft, known for his theatrical runway shows and corsets, is participating in the fund for a second time after he a transformative experience in 2022.

“The first fashion fund was the reason we started doing runway shows,” he said. “That was very much at the suggestion of Vogue and CFDA.”

He has gone on to produce five more fashion shows — his latest three-part act opened with a choreographed dance performance and closed with 26 size-inclusive veiled models wearing his trademark white wasp satin corsets.

While prepping for his fashion week show, Wiederhoeft was also submitting his final look for the fashion fund’s design challenge, which CFDA and Vogue brought back this year after a pandemic-induced pause. As part of the exercise, overseen by Tommy Hilfiger, designers created a look based on the theme “Stars and Stripes.”

The CFDA and Vogue continue to support its finalists past the fund. Rogers and past finalist House of Aama will be taking their designs to the CFDA/Vogue Americans in Paris Initiative during Paris Fashion Week. Rebecca Henry of House of Aama said the showcase comes at a pivotal time as the brand looks to expand.

“We are just looking at how to expand into other markets and especially the international markets,” she said.

Straight after her runway show, Ling was preparing for market appointments, where buyers can come view her collection at her midtown Manhattan showroom. Regardless of whether she wins, she’s already thinking about what’s next.

“I’m thinking five years down the road,” she said. “I’m thinking 10 years. I’m thinking about tomorrow.”