The Council of Fashion Designers of America has ordered all 24 winners of its 30th anniversary scholarship fund to design, sew and present complete fall collections in a single live runway marathon, with each garment required to be finished on stage before a panel of judges holding stopwatches.
The event, scheduled for next month at a converted Brooklyn warehouse, will see each scholar work from a bare bolt of fabric and a single sketchbook, with mentors from Carolina Herrera, Saint Laurent and Tiffany & Co. forbidden from touching the material but permitted to shout encouragement from the front row. Winners will receive their scholarships between $10,000 and $50,000 only after the final hem is stitched, and any designer whose zipper jams or seam unravels will have their award redistributed to the remaining finalists on the spot.
Organizers have installed industrial sewing machines along the catwalk and hired a team of 12 runners to ferry thread, buttons and measuring tape from a supply table at the back of the hall. The 50 finalists who did not win have been assigned to hold the fabric taut while the winners work, and the nearly 700 applicants who were rejected in the first round have been asked to stand in the audience and offer moral support in shifts.
CFDA officials said the format was chosen to honor three decades of the fund by proving that talent cannot hide behind pre-production. «The scholarship has always been about promise,» said a committee spokesperson. «This year we decided to measure it in real time, with a needle and a deadline.» The marathon is expected to run 14 hours, with a single 20-minute break for the judges to eat sandwiches, and the finished collections will be auctioned immediately afterward to cover next year's application fees.