The Fashion Scholarship Fund (FSF) announced today that designer Virgil Abloh will be joining its Board of Governors. In this role, Abloh will join fellow Board members in providing scholarships and internship, mentoring, and professional development opportunities for the organization’s scholars who are just starting out in the fashion industry.

“We are so honored to have Virgil join the FSF Board. His efforts to promote equity and inclusion directly align with our inherent mission to attract and support a diverse pool of industry talent,” said Peter Arnold, FSF Executive Director. “The FSF has received a record number of applicants for this year’s scholarship competition. By working with top HBCUs and other schools that have significant populations of students of color, we are attracting highly talented students who we believe represent the future of the industry. We are expanding our outreach to these schools and have plans to onboard an additional six HBCUs in 2021.”

“I’m thrilled to be ramping up my involvement with the FSF as we work together for long-term change in our industry,” Abloh said. “Since announcing the Post-Modern fund, I’ve had the privilege of speaking with FSF students, and their determination and optimism is inspiring. Young Black people are ready to be heard, and it’s high time we provided them with the in-roads and opportunities they need to become the next heads of our fashion houses.”

In July 2020, Abloh announced that with the support of his partners evian, Farfetch, Louis Vuitton, New Guards Group, and Off-White, that he had raised $1 million to support scholarships and greater opportunities for Black students through the Virgil Abloh™️ “Post-Modern” Scholarship Fund, to be managed in partnership with the Fashion Scholarship Fund.

Post-Modern Scholarship recipients will receive $5,000 scholarships prior to the commencement of their spring semesters, paid summer internships at various fashion companies including several of Abloh’s partners, mentorship from fashion industry leaders, and access to FSF career programming and professional development resources. For more information, including eligibility requirements and how to apply, interested students should visit the FSF site.

About the Fashion Scholarship Fund
Founded in 1937, the Fashion Scholarship Fund supports the careers of the country’s most promising fashion students from all backgrounds. It awards over $1 million each year to help students succeed in all sectors of the industry: design, merchandising, marketing analytics, and supply chain, among others. The FSF also provides scholars with coveted internship and career opportunities, mentorships, networking, and access to the industry’s most influential leaders and companies.

About Virgil Abloh
Born in Rockford, Illinois, Virgil Abloh is a multi-hyphenate creative that often rejects classification on creativity. He operates in the realms of Art, Design, and Culture in conjunction with advocacy, mentoring, and philanthropy in the spaces he occupies. After earning a degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he completed a master’s degree in Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Chicago. At IIT, while studying a Bauhaus design curriculum devised by Mies van der Rohe, Abloh began to craft the principles of his broader art practice. The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago presented a major traveling survey of Abloh’s work in summer 2019—one of the highest attended exhibitions in the museum’s history. Currently, Abloh is the Chief Creative Director and founder of Off-White™️ and Men’s Artistic Director at Louis Vuitton, amongst other endeavors.

SOURCE The Fashion Scholarship Fund