How Peter Arnold Went from Practicing Law to Raising Funds for Fashion Talent

Watch the full conversation between Peter Arnold and Staff Writer Andrea Bossi on The Fashionista Network.

Peter Arnold and the Fashion Scholarship Fund team have dedicated their careers to providing fashion students with the resources and opportunities they need to live out their aspirations. But unlike the rising talent the Fashion Scholarship Fund supports, Arnold didn't initially dream of a career in fashion: He began his career on Wall Street as a lawyer. But after 13 years of meeting clients and friends within the fashion industry, he decided to follow his passion and shift his career trajectory.

Arnold said he "serendipitously" landed his first industry role as executive director of the CFDA. "I think they liked that I was fresh and new and young," Arnold told Fashionista staff writer Andrea Bossi live on the Fashionista Network. He didn't have any preexisting fashion-industry loyalties, which he believes made him a prime candidate for the CFDA at the turn of the millennium.

"I came in at a moment when they needed to be rebranded, reimagined," Arnold said. He would go on to transform the organization into an asset for designers both young and established. He even created the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund alongside Anna Wintour.

After six years with the CFDA, Arnold went corporate, serving as president of John Varvatos Enterprises and CEO of both Cynthia Rowley and Cushnie et Ochs, before returning to the nonprofit side of the industry in 2018, when he became executive director of the Fashion Scholarship Fund.

Each year, Arnold and fellow judges at the Fashion Scholarship Fund and Virgil Abloh Post-Modern Scholarship Fund select around 150 students to receive scholarships of $10,000 or more and connect them to internships, full-time positions and industry professionals who want to nurture young talent. The Virgil Abloh Post-Modern Scholarship Fund came into the picture in 2020. Conceptualized by the former Off-White and Louis Vuitton designer himself, it identifies promising Black fashion students in the sectors of design and product development, marketing, merchandising and business strategy.

"[Abloh] wanted to help that 17-year-old version of himself," Arnold said. "I think he wanted to make sure that, for anybody following him, it was going to be a little easier." (Abloh's career, much like Arnold's, started far from fashion. In college, he studied engineering and architecture.)

Before his passing, Abloh arranged the auction of 200 pairs of his limited-edition Louis Vuitton Air Force 1s; the auction was so successful that it will fund the scholarship for years to come. "We raised $20 million in a day," Arnold told Bossi.

In its first year, the Virgil Abloh Post-Modern Scholarship Fund identified 23 Virgil Abloh Scholars. This year, Arnold and fellow judges aim to select 60. Each year, applicants will produce a case study project in the sector of their choice surrounding a chosen industry theme. New themes are announced every February. The project serves as their introduction to the industry, with fashion and technology as the current application theme.

"I still feel the fashion industry is small in the sense that there are connections that you can make, and there are people who want to support you," Arnold said on the Fashionista Network.

In making the industry feel more accessible, the hope is that the fund will keep promising creatives from having to turn down entry-level opportunities for financial reasons — opportunities that, by the way, are unfortunately few and far between at the moment. "Companies are hiring interns later in their college experience," and after they graduate, Arnold noted. Scholarship winners still benefit from connections and internships with top companies in what he called an apprehensive fashion job market.

Arnold also shared his advice for navigating this competitive job market, how to go about applying for the scholarship and future plans for the program. Watch the full interview here.

This conversation was hosted on The Fashionista Network powered by interactive media platform Fireside, where viewers get the chance to participate and speak directly with industry figures. Learn more about The Fashionista Network here.

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