The Council of Fashion Designers of America and Vogue presented New York-based German designer Melitta Baumeister, known for her innovative, often voluptuous silhouettes, with the 2023 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund award.

Rachel Scott of craft-centric ready-to-wear label Diotima and Henry Zankov, the designer of his namesake knitwear line, were named runners up. Baumeister will receive a $300,000 prize while Scott and Zankov will take home $100,000. All winners will be paired with mentors.

Finalists also included Sami Miro of Sam Miro Vintage, Tanner Fletcher’s Fletcher Kassel and Tanner Richie, Who Decides War’s Téla D’Amore and Everard Best and Kim Shui.

Supermodel Linda Evangelista made the announcement live at Vogue’s Forces of Fashion event, the magazine’s consumer-facing conference.

This year, the competition returned to its original, pre-pandemic format, where the committee chose one winner. In 2020, In lieu of presenting the award, Vogue and the CFDA debuted a relief fund for designers, retailers and factories called A Common Thread. In 2021 and 2022 the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund gave all ten finalists funding and access to mentorship in response to the difficulties brought on by the Covid-19 crisis.

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CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Names Finalists

After awarding prizes to all finalists for the past two years, the initiative will revert to naming one winner and two runners-up.