Japanese knotweed, discarded denim and algae-based bioplastics are not the usual contents of a fashion scholarship application. But for 12 students, they helped make the case.
The Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) Foundation and Bezos Earth Fund on Thursday named the inaugural recipients of the Next Thread Scholarship Award, providing more than $500,000 in tuition and thesis-production support for the 2026-27 academic year.
The cohort includes seven master’s students and five rising seniors from eight schools: Parsons School of Design, the Fashion Institute of Technology, Pratt Institute, New York University, Drexel University, Marist University, California College of the Arts and Academy of Art University. The CFDA said the group includes more graduate students than any previous CFDA scholarship class.
A selection committee that included Bezos Earth Fund vice chair Lauren Sánchez Bezos, CFDA president and CEO Steven Kolb and designers Joseph Altuzarra, Stacey Bendet, Tommy Hilfiger, Grace Ling, Sami Miro and Tracy Reese chose the scholars. The program received more than 100 applications and advanced 20 students to the finalist round.
The funding will help close final-year tuition gaps and support the creation of senior theses and graduate collections. Each scholar also received a dedicated stipend of between $10,000 and $15,000 for materials, supplies and other studio expenses.
Three students were named Scholars with Distinction: FIT’s Zion Burrell, Parsons’ Hera Ford and NYU’s Grace Wang. Each received an additional $1,000, bringing their individual thesis stipends to $16,000.
“Supporting the future of sustainable fashion and creating a talent pipeline, beginning with student scholarships, is central to the CFDA’s mission,” Kolb said. “Through our partnership with the Bezos Earth Fund, the Next Thread Scholarship Award lets us grow that support in the thesis studio.”
Sánchez Bezos traced her own interest in design to sewing a prom dress she had spotted in Vogue while growing up in New Mexico.
“Fashion can start anywhere,” she said. “A photo in a magazine. A fabric store. An idea about what a fiber could be. Somebody has to be curious enough to try. That’s the whole thing.”
The selected portfolios span established waste-reduction methods and experimental materials whose performance and commercial potential remain to be tested.
Kaitlyn Awaya, a rising senior studying fashion design at Drexel, proposed converting invasive plants including Japanese knotweed, garlic mustard and starry stonewort into structural textiles, natural dyes and alginate-based filament. Her modular garments are designed to change in volume, length and silhouette, allowing them to adapt across seasons and climates.
Biomaterials featured heavily across the selected work. Parsons MFA student Freda Xinyue Xia combines silk, natural dyes and gelatin-based biomaterials to create biodegradable, responsive surfaces. September Zheng, a rising senior at California College of the Arts, is experimenting with gelatin, agar-agar and seaweed bioplastics, along with water-activated seams and gelatin strips used as adhesive.
Parsons MFA textiles student Zoe Gras is developing algae-based bioplastics and agar-based materials alongside slow, domestic knitting. Her work takes cues from natural phenomena including the movement of rivers.
Other recipients focus on preventing waste before fabric reaches the cutting-room floor. Caterina Assi, a rising senior at Marist, incorporates excess material into pockets, cuffs and layered components through zero-waste tailoring. Parsons graduate student Cayman Chen uses rectangular fabric perimeters and what Chen calls “pattern-negatives” to reinterpret Ivy League clothing archetypes using deadstock and scraps.
At FIT, Burrell pairs three-dimensional visualization and rendering with low-waste pattern nesting, assessing material use before cutting fabric. Burrell’s square-based “planar flux” patterns and modular layers are designed to create multiple styling options from natural-fiber materials including Japanese selvedge denim and wool melton.
For several recipients, materials offer a way to examine cultural inheritance and the histories embedded in clothing.
Catrielle Barnett, a rising senior at the Academy of Art University, uses quilting to explore care, survival and historical continuity. Her work combines community-sourced quilts, discarded denim and reclaimed cotton and linen with natural dyes made using turmeric, indigo and rainwater. One submitted look reportedly used 98 percent of its material through modular skirt blocks, gussets and corset lacing.
Ford draws from Black and Southern sharecropper traditions of reuse and durability while investigating the relationship among labor, spirituality and textiles in American fashion. Pratt graduate student Parul Sharma explores the Zenana, or women’s quarters, through Indian and Western craft traditions, waste textiles, natural fibers and removable hardware intended to make garments easier to disassemble.
Wang, whose interdisciplinary studies span materials science, fashion design, business and intelligent sustainable systems, 3D-printed polylactic acid, natural dyes and recovered materials with an interest in regional fiber economies and Chinese and Western garment traditions.
FIT graduate student Nell Sweeney takes a different route. Her “Wilt” project uses rusting, composting and burial to alter textiles without synthetic dyes or chemical finishes. The portfolio also incorporates repurposed leather, biodegradable liquid latex and experimental materials made from orange peels and coffee grounds.
The scholars are part of the broader $6.25 million CFDA x Bezos Earth Fund Next Thread Initiative, a three-year partnership supporting sustainability-focused education, independent designers and public programming. In addition to $1.5 million allocated for scholarships, the initiative will provide $3 million in grants to independent American fashion brands and designers working on sustainable materials, circular design and lower-impact production.
The designer-award track will distribute $1 million in 2026 through individual grants ranging from $100,000 to $300,000, with award sizes determined by the proposed project’s scope and readiness.
The scholarship announcement follows an expansion of another CFDA program for emerging designers. On Wednesday, the organization and Genesis named Azeeza Khan of Azeeza, Saber Ahmed of Glass Cypress and Shao Yang of SHAO New York as the 2026-27 class of the CFDA | Genesis House AAPI Design + Innovation Grant.
For its fourth year, the program shifted from a competition model to equal funding for all three designers. Each will receive a $60,000 grant, business mentorship and an immersive cultural experience in Seoul. Guided by the theme “Second Nature,” the designers will create collections exploring the relationship between cultural heritage and contemporary design. The work will debut at Genesis House in May 2027.
For the Next Thread students, several selected ideas remain experimental, and questions about performance, cost, and scale will come later. The funding gives the students more time, tools and materials to determine which concepts can move beyond the studio.
“They’re rethinking what clothes are made from in ways I never could have imagined at their age,” Sánchez Bezos said. “After reading their applications, I think these designers are going to take this further than any of us can see right now.”
