Net-A-Porter announces inaugural Vanguard Education Fund recipients

Luxury online retailer Net-A-Porter is expanding its The Vanguard mentorship and business-support programme for womenswear designers to include a new Education Fund to provide financial support and dedicated mentoring to final-year students.

The inaugural Vanguard Education Fund for 2022 has been awarded to four final-year university students in partnership with the British Fashion Council (BFC), as Net-a-Porter looks to strengthen its long-term commitment to nurturing emerging talent.

The four students receiving funds and mentorship are Ben Davis, BA Fashion Design with Industry Placement, Kingston School of Art; Renato Bras, BA Fashion Design with Marketing, Central Saint Martins; Finlay Roberts, BA Fashion Design, Falmouth University; and Maissane Zinai, BA Fashion Design Womenswear, Central Saint Martins.

The Vanguard Education Fund is accessible to final-year students through a competition run by the BFC, open to all BFC Colleges Council members, as well as Parsons School of Design, Politecnico di Milano, TAFE Australia and FEDISA Fashion School Cape Town. The four winners for 2022 were selected from more than 180 student applications, explains Net-a-Porter, following a “competitive interview process with a panel of industry expert”.

Net-a-Porter expands Vanguard mentorship scheme to include final-year students

Each Vanguard Education Fund winner will receive a monetary prize and will be paired with two “industry-leading” mentors for 12 months, each selected to complement the student's individual ambitions. Davis will be mentored by fashion designer Conner Ives and musician and actor Jessica Jung, while Bras will receive support from designer Christopher John Rogers and Net-a-Porter’s content director Alice Casely-Hayford.

Roberts has been paired with Khaite’s founder and creative director Catherine Holstein and Net-a-Porter’s Libby Page, and Zinai will receive mentorship from Instagram’s director of fashion partnerships Eva Chen and British Vogue’s fashion director Julia Sarr-Jamois.

Each student, alongside The Vanguard’s latest brands for 2022 Miss Sohee and Grace Ling, will also benefit from 3D garment-design training to create technically advanced, digitised products using true-to-life garment visualisation, thereby reducing waste and improving time efficiency when creating samples.

Libby Page, market director at Net-a-Porter, said in a statement: “We are thrilled to announce the inaugural winners of The Vanguard Education Fund and are excited to support the students as they embark on their professional journeys.

“Our goal is to continually expand our mentorship programmes and being able to offer learnings from our long-standing Vanguard program to university students marks an exciting next step in our work to ensure emerging designers have the tools they need for a successful career.”

Net-a-Porter’s incubator of new talent The Vanguard programme has to date supported 27 brands, 52 percent of which are BIPOC-owned, including Peter Do, Christopher John Rogers, Khumalo, Conner Ives, Lukhanyo Mding and Jia Jia. Each designer is mentored by Net-a-Porter’s global team of experts, who deliver in-depth training that focuses on building a successful business.