40 NOVEMBER 2019 VOGUE.COM
R aising OurVo i c e sIN EVERY NOVEMBER ISSUE from 2004 onward we have
introduced you to the 10 finalists of the CFDA/Vogue
Fashion Fund. We started the fund in response to the
turbulent landscape for young designers after 9/11, when
many of them were struggling to keep themselves and
their businesses afloat, and over the years, many of our
finalists have gone on to international acclaim. (To name
just a few: Proenza Schouler, Alexander Wang, Rodarte,
Altuzarra, and Thom Browne.) Of course, the world
in which they started their businesses is now almost
unrecognizable. At the time of the fund’s inception there
was no Instagram, there were no influencers, and
e-commerce was but a fraction of what it is today. And
while it’s been only 15 years since, if one measures
that earlier era against life today, it might as well be 60.
Something else there was quite a bit less of in that
earlier time: a sense of political commitment, cultural
sensitivity, and inclusivity. Thankfully, things have
changed. There’s been a much-needed urgency lately
in the work of so many designers, not least of
all our Fashion Fund class of 2019, all of whom are
optimistically engaging with the future. They’re
addressing environmental challenges and the needLetter from the Editor
for greater representation, and they’re opting to
manufacture their collections in ways that are both
respectful and responsible.
The finalists who were able to show during the spring
2020 collections in September did so in a joyful and
life-affirming manner. Oftentimes their presentations
spoke to their own communities, whether it was
showing in an artist’s studio in Brooklyn, or re-creating,
in Stuyvesant Square Park, a greenmarket where the
audience was urged to bag up the fruit and flowers from
the stalls to carry home post-show. All of these were
simple and humble gestures that intimately connected
fashion with the world at large—and doesn’t that feel
more vital and needed than ever before?
Our funders weren’t alone in taking this approach.
So many of those who showed during New York’s much
shorter Fashion “Week”—thank you, Tom Ford, for
starting your CFDA chairmanship with such a welcome
and much-needed change!—evoked their personal worlds
to a quite wonderful degree, regardless of whether they
were an up-and-coming name or a global megabrand.
Ralph Lauren gave us a fabulous nightclub à la the Stork
Club or the Copacabana, with singer and actor Janelle
Monáe belting out standards like a latter-day Frank
Sinatra. Meanwhile, last year’s winner of the Fashion
Fund, Kerby Jean-Raymond of Pyer Moss, showed
at the Kings Theatre in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, bringing
his audience to their feet—and,HOME TEAM
THE 2019 CFDA/VOGUE FASHION FUND FINALISTS,
PHOTOGRAPHED BY STEFAN RUIZ.