The CFDA Fashion Trust Will Provide Financial Support and Mentoring to New Designers
New York fashion week wraps up tonight with Savage x Fenty. It’s bound to be a blowout, Rihanna productions typically are. But most of the names on the calendar this week weren’t global superstars, and pulling together the resources for a fashion show has posed challenges for even some of the city’s top labels, who are now opting for lower-key presentations and installations. How’s a NYFW first-timer supposed to manage?
As of this fall, young designers and aspiring talents of any age who are based in the US have a new resource to lean on: the CFDA Fashion Trust. The charitable initiative will provide business support through financial grants and strategic mentoring. It’s modeled on a similar program launched in London in 2011 by Tania Fares, a British Vogue contributor, in cooperation with the British Fashion Calendar that to date has raised £3.5 million, funding the likes of Emilia Wickstead and Palmer Harding.
Fares worked with Lulu Kennedy, the founder and director of Fashion East & MAN and the Lulu & Co clothing line. She says, “I know what it takes to have a young brand, the challenges and rewards. We’ve grown to 145 members in the UK now.” Here in the US, Fares is joined by founding co-chairs Elisa Sednaoui Dellal, who like Fares is based in Los Angeles, and New York’s Rickie De Sole and Laura de Gunzburg. The Trust will work on a donation basis, and it will be further supported by an Executive Board and Ambassadors. To date the board members include Ali Fatourechi, Marc Jordan, Christine Marzano, Liberty Ross, and Ciara Wilson in LA, and Natalya Poniatowski, Nasiba Adilova, Kinjil Mathur, Fabiola Beracasa, and Lizzie Tisch in New York. The Los Angeles ambassadors are Nicole Avant, George Kotsiopoulos, Irena Medavoy, Eric Buterbaugh, and Kelly Meyer. Alison Loehnis of Net-A-Porter and Mr. Porter, Megha Mittal of Escada, and HRH Reema Bint Bandar Bin Sultan Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia are Founding Patrons.
“Fashion is driven not just by designers in studios, but by media both new and traditional, by retail, by consumers, by other business people,” says Steven Kolb, the President and CEO of the CFDA. “To have all of those people have a stake in the work that the CFDA does, particularly as we see the industry transitioning, it makes us more relevant and brings fresh perspectives that we all need right now.” Fares seconds the notion. “It’s great for designers to have exposure to our members. It won’t be just people involved in fashion; it’ll be dynamic people from different worlds. What’s exciting is the access.”
