Karolina Kurkova Supports Young Talent At Elle Fashion Next

by Justin Fenner | 3:47 pm, September 10th, 2011

It takes a village to raise a child, and last night some of the fashion tribe assembled at Lincoln Center to celebrate the next generation of design genius at Elle Fashion Next.

The event, now in its second year, highlights the talent at the Savannah College of Art and Design. A panel of judges including (of course) Elle‘s editor Robbie Myers and her right-hand man Joe Zee, in addition to designers like Chris Benz and reps from Maybelline, which sponsors the competition, evaluate the graduating fashion design class to see who has a chance to really make it in the industry. Two winners get $25,000 and contacts with a handful of bold-faced names in the industry. Right out of college, these kids could have the potential to start a serious business. And model Karolina Kurkova, who was there last night, told us that sponsoring young talent is the only way the fashion industry is going to move forward.

“I think it’s very important. Because being a young designer and starting out, you know how it is — it’s like starting out in anything,” she said. “It’s so hard. And to have Maybelline and Elle help and give them a hand and say, OK, We think you’re great, you work so hard, you’re talented. We’ll give you the chance to show at Lincoln Center in front of people, retailers who can make you famous, can give you work.”

Kurkova is at the top of her career — and it’s thanks in large part to supporting young talent. You don’t just become a Victoria’s Secret Angel overnight, after all.

“I always try to work with a lot of young designers, more like newer, not so big brands,” she said, mentioning her work with Rag and Bone, Proenza Schouler and Joseph Altuzarra. “I’ve always tried to balance it with newcomers, new fresh people who will be the next big thing.”

SCAD’s Faith Thornburg won $25,000 from Elle, and her classmate Lindsey Hopkins won $25,000 from Maybelline. Take a look at the future of fashion, below.

You are seeing this message because you have javascript disabled. To use our slideshows you need to enable javascript. There's no cross domain hackery or tracking voodoo, it's just some sweet jQuery animations. Please, think of the animations.