Grace Ling named first recipient of CFDA/Genesis House AAPI grant

Singapore-born, New York-based designer Grace Ling has been named the winner of the first edition of the CFDA/Genesis House AAPI Design and Innovation Grant, an honour that had been unveiled during an event at Genesis House last night.

As part of the initiative, Ling, alongside fellow participants Andrew Kwon and Private Policy’s Haoran Li and Siying Qu, had been tasked with creating a fashion collection that represented the juxtaposition between Asian heritage and modernity.

The results were then judged by vice president of global marketing and communications at Carolina Herrera, Jodie Chyan, alongside a number of other notable executives including president of Kering Americas, Laurent Claquin.

As such, Ling received the grand prize of 100,000 dollars for her three looks that incorporated 3D-printing and aimed to exhibit a renewed take on femininity through the merging of Asia heritage and folktales.

At the event, which was attended and reported on by WWD, Ling said: “I am very honoured to be the recipient of Genesis House’s first AAPI Innovation Grant with CFDA. It is a privilege to be able to combine modernity, heritage and innovation in my practice, and this has given me the opportunity to do so. Genesis House is very inspiring in these aspects, and I look forward to taking these values with me in my future work.”