Grace Ling Wins the CFDA/Genesis House Design Innovation Grant

In September, the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) and Genesis introduced Andrew Kwon, Grace Ling, and Siying Qu and Haoran Li of Private Policy as finalists of a newly announced mentorship and grant program to support rising AAPI designers. With $40,000 in initial funding from Genesis, each member of the group was challenged to create a collection influenced by both modernity, their heritage, and an inspiration trip to South Korea. Along the way, the program connected them with a mix of advisors and mentors who also happened to be among the industry’s top talents: Monse founders Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia, Saks menswear merchandise manager Sandra Park, CFDA CEO Steven Kolb, and more. 

Now fast forward to last week, when the CFDA kicked off New York Fashion Week with a cocktail and collection reveal party at Genesis House in celebration of the program’s three finalists. Their collections were exhibited for attendees to see alongside archival pieces from Altuzarra, Bibhu Mohapatra, Monse, Naeem Khan, Peter Som, PH5, Prabal Gurung, and Vivienne Tam. At the end of the night, Kolb and Genesis House’s own program mentor Rachel Espersen jointly announced Ling as the recipient of the program’s $60,000 grand prize, as determined by a panel of judges including top leaders at Carolina Herrera, 3.1 Phillip Lim, Kering, along with Kolb and Espersen. Ling’s collection combined references to Asian folktales, such as the Chinese Nine-Tailed Fox, with material ingenuity in the form of a 3D-printed chrome couture gown, and an interpretation of femininity shown through the lenses of seduction, transformation, and imitation.  

Over the past few months, Ling said during her acceptance speech, “People have come up to me saying ‘I feel like I can do this because I see you, an AAPI person, doing it.’” In conversation with Surface, Espersen, Kolb, and Ling get frank about knowledge you can’t put a price on, how a $60,000 prize purse impacts a rising luxury designer’s bottom line, and the “Why now?” of it all. This interview has been edited and condensed. 

Surface: Was there any one experience from this program that has shaped your development and trajectory as a designer? Something you didn’t learn in school, or hadn’t quite figured out before the program? 

Grace Ling: The relationships we have developed with our mentors like Laura Kim, Fernando Garcia and Prabal Gurung. I feel very encouraged to know that they have been through what I have been through, and that I am not alone and am on the right path. Fashion school does not teach you about the countless things you actually need to know to run a brand, like finances, celebrity management, wholesale relations and a thousand other things. I have just been doing everything based on gut and it was really encouraging to know that these inspiring people were once there too. 

The public is learning about how difficult the path of a fashion designer can be. Those who don’t know can assume that just because a designer’s clothing sells at a certain price point, everything must come easily. How will the $60,000 prize benefit your business? 

GL: I actually think it’s more difficult to sell at a luxury price point. The customer base is smaller and something at a contemporary price point has a lot higher of a purchase volume. I am using the $60K to hire someone to help me with production and supply chain.

In New York, there are many ways to attain ‘success’ as a designer. What do you hope this program shows emerging AAPI designers who are wondering if it’s worth it to invest in a standard of excellence to maybe, one day, be invited to join the CFDA?

Steven Kolb: American fashion is very different than in Europe. There are a lot of young talent prizes and I think CFDA has paved the way for all of them through 20 years of programs for young designers. Of course other fashion councils have programs. But what you have for designers here is opportunity. It’s more democratic and it’s more entrepreneurial. It isn’t governed by big conglomerates or old institutions that are resistant to change. It’s really about innovation, newness.

Why was now the right time to launch this program?

SK: At the CFDA we’re all about nurturing talent. Our current chairman, Thom Browne, his mantra since was “double down on creativity” and it’s so important to give the designers the space to be creative. When you have a program like this that provides money, mentoring, and business advice, it allows them to be creative. We saw that with what the three of them presented as their final looks.

The industry, like all industries, like society, really did reckon with the lack of diversity after George Floyd’s murder in 2020. While the CFDA had always been very conscious about having programs that included all, there were probably some who would say they didn’t feel like they belong, like they could relate to those programs. It was a reckoning moment too, in [asking], well, “Why is that?”  We realized that to engage or to support the AAPI community, Black community, the Latinx community, you have to go to those communities to actually gain trust, and to work and collaborate. Genesis was the perfect partner. 

Rachel Espersen: We really felt that anyone can just do fashion and design. You have many partnerships for that. But what makes Genesis unique is really our AAPI (Korean) heritage. In coming up with the program we realized there had never been something to support AAPI designers and emerging talent. 

So why now? I mean, of course, it should have been done years ago. It’s been time to do it. And it probably takes a brand like Genesis that wants to embrace its Korean heritage.