In 2004, designer Chris Benz was awarded the CFDA Emerging Designer Award upon his graduation. At the time, he was working at Marc Jacobs; following school, he was hired as a womenswear designer at J. Crew (which he later returned, in 2019). After his years cultivating their Special Occasion and Collection lines, he launched his own line, which saw meteoric success and was featured across countless publications, collaborated with esteemed brands, and beloved by celebrities. Last year, he launched his own design firm – Cult Projects – expanding his brand into interior designs.

We caught up with Chris to get his insight into the CFDA scholarship process and find out more about his latest endeavors.

Chris, thanks for taking the time to speak to me. Tell us a bit about your fashion education — where did you go to school and what did you study? 

I attended Parsons School of Design (BA Fashion Design).

What is one key takeaway from your fashion education? How did this impact you?

I think one takeaway from my fashion education – and not only from Parsons – is that you can always do more, go farther, push an idea or concept further.  Seeing an idea through to the fullest expression seems like an important takeaway looking back.

Do you remember the moment you found out that you received the scholarship? How did you feel? 

I was so thrilled of course, I think I found out towards the very end of the academic year, so it was a nice bit of relief looking ahead to my final year at Parsons.  I knew the senior projects and loads of extra expenses were on the horizon!

What was the scholarship application process like for you? 

I remember how obsessive I was about my illustration projects each week º– taking hours and hours to illustrate and gouache paint every detail.  It seems so ridiculous looking back on it, that I would layer on even more work to build out the scholarship project, but I was in total work mode so it became quite an all-encompassing portfolio to assemble.  I remember going to Pearl Paint to buy special vellum paper and little screw posts and all sorts of nice things to use.  It was a really huge deal to me!

Along with the financial aspects, how else did the CFDA Scholarship help your studies?

I think the CFDA scholarship was a really nice endorsement of my dream to move to NYC to attend Parsons, all the way across the country from Seattle and of course made my parents very happy that they’d even allowed me to do so!  

Where have you been finding inspiration these days? 

I find inspiration everywhere – but certainly during this past year of inaccessibility a lot has been related to social media and online outlets.  Instagram still rocks my world with the constant and relentless assault of inspiration and cool people doing interesting things.

What are you working on now? What’s next for you? 

I recently started a new chapter of my career, pivoting from fashion to the home world.  I quietly started my own little renovation & decorating business Cult Projects during lockdown that has kept me very busy.  It’s really about leveraging the knowledge and experience I’ve garnered over 20 years of renovating apartments and homes in my spare time.  It’s a very mysterious world to most people, so we try to act as guide and support client’s visions of living beautifully.