Inside the 2021 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Cocktail

“We’re all winners here,” said Abrima Erwiah of Studio One Eighty Nine at yesterday afternoon’s cocktail celebrating the 2021 class of the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund. Like many things of late, this year’s event was different from previous iterations. Typically, the CVFF cocktail party is the setting of a design challenge—the opportunity for participating designers to showcase their works (designed according to specifications delivered to them by Vogue) on the bodies of their muses. This year, however, there was no competition (things have been challenging enough as it is!). As Erwiah put it, the 2021 CVFF designers all won—a cash grant, plus mentorship from leading industry figures.

Representatives from this year’s class (which includes Batsheva Hay of Batsheva; Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta of Eckhaus Latta; Anifa Mvuemba of Hanifa; Rebecca Henry and Akua Shabaka of House of Aama; Kenneth Nicholson; Jameel Mohammed of Khiry; LaQuan Smith; Abrima Erwiah of Studio One Eighty Nine; Edvin Thompson of Theophilio; and Willy Chavarria) did turn up with a muse, though, which meant the event, hosted at Spring Place, was a very well-dressed one. 

On the arm of Batsheva Hay was the singer and artist Kilo Kish, who sported a black and white ruffled and pearled dress cut à la Batsheva. The designer herself wore a similar silhouette in a wet-leather-esque textile in tomato red. Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta’s date was model Paloma Elsesser, who was radiant in the two-piece knit set that opened their last collectsion. “That only arrived this morning,” said Latta of the look. “And, of course, Paloma looks incredible, but she’d look incredible in anything.”

Erwiah’s date was the writer and performer Alok Vaid-Menon, who sported incredibly colorful locks with a Studio One Eighty Nine look that included a Kente-cloth button-up shirt and polka-dotted skirt. “I recently learned the word chromophobia,” they explained, “a fear of color—and it’s a real thing. I feel so empowered by color, I just thought, why not wear them all today?” Erwiah, who produces most everything for her label in her grandparent’s native Ghana, echoed the sentiment. “Western culture is really afraid of color—men especially. I’ll dress men who are reluctant to wear vibrant patterns, but they’ll come back to me telling me about all the compliments they received, and then they want more!”

And looking around the event, which was sponsored by IMG and Afterpay, it was a pretty colorful crew. Past Fashion Funder Hillary Taymor of Collina Strada was characteristically vibrant in clashing prints, actor Laura Harrier smoldered in red, and Studio One Eighy Nine co-founder Rosario Dawson wore a brilliant array of stripes. You could just feel the optimism, youth, and spirit in the room.