The 85th annual Fashion Scholarship Fund gala brought together the fashion industry to celebrate the newest class of upcoming designers, merchandisers and fashion and retail industry students.

The Fashion Scholarship Fund honored 123 fashion and retail college students from around the country and awarded them over $1 million in scholarships, including the new class of 23 Virgil Abloh “Post-Modern” Scholarship Fund Winners.

Abloh created the “Post-Modern” Scholarship Fund in 2020 in partnership with FSF to support Black students that wanted to work in the fashion industry. Over 40 “Post-Modern” scholars have received college scholarship awards.

The Fashion Scholarship Fund event honored the FSF class of 2022 with the four Chairman’s Award finalists giving presentations to the audience. Naecia Dixon, student at the Savannah College of Art and Design and a 2022 Virgil Abloh Post-Modern Scholar was the recipient of the Chairman’s Award and was presented by Abloh’s wife, Shannon Abloh.

“Like Virgil, I have big dream. I want my work towards sustainable fashion to lead to oceans that remain forever blue and forests that are evergreen,” Dixon said to the crowd. “Where people don’t lose a sense of visual identity while trying to help the earth. I want a little Black Jamaican girl to see how I saw Virgil. That I am not a saint or a superhero or a goddess. That I am just a Black woman who worked her ass off, and if I can do it, she can do it too.”