Tiffany and CFDA expand jewelry design awards with new scholarship

Tiffany and the CFDA are widening their jewelry awards into a two-track pipeline: one path for an early-career student, and another for emerging designers ready to turn clean ideas into metal capsules. The new Tiffany x CFDA Jewelry Design Scholar Award will give one student a $25,000 scholarship and a summer internship in Tiffany’s design department, while the larger Tiffany & Co. x CFDA Jewelry Designer Award will back finalists developing a 3- to 5-piece metal capsule collection.

Applications for the 2026-2027 cycle opened May 10 and close June 1. Finalists will be notified by August 31, and the winner will be named at The Landmark, Tiffany & Co.’s Fifth Avenue flagship in New York City. One designer will receive a $50,000 grant and a one-year paid fellowship with the Tiffany design team, a package that goes beyond prize money and pushes the work into daily studio practice.

The structure matters for what readers are likely to see next in fine jewelry. A short metal capsule, paired with one-on-one mentorship and a multi-week learning experience focused on craft and material exploration, encourages precise, wearable work rather than trophy pieces. That points toward the kinds of objects that tend to reshape minimalist jewelry first: narrow bands, pared-back links, subtle surface treatments and considered proportions.

The initiative builds on the inaugural Tiffany & Co. x CFDA Jewelry Designer Award, which was announced in July 2024 and awarded in January 2025 to Jameel Mohammed. He received $50,000 and a one-year paid fellowship in Tiffany’s design department, and has been a fellow since April 2025. He will now join the second-cycle selection committee, bringing an active designer’s eye to the next round of talent.

The 2026-2027 committee also includes Nathalie Verdeille, Rajni Jacques, Gabrielle Union, Bethann Hardison, Frank Everett, Karla Martinez de Salas, Andrew Bolton and Lynn Yaeger. The new scholarship is being established with the CFDA Scholarship Fund, which says it has awarded approximately $5.9 million and 415 scholarships from 1996 to 2025, supporting more than 400 student designers.

Tiffany and the CFDA have framed the program through Tiffany Atrium and CFDA Impact as a push for a more inclusive next generation of American jewelry designers. For readers watching the minimalist space, the most useful signal is not just who wins, but what they are asked to make: small, metal-led collections shaped by direct access to one of the most visible houses in fine jewelry.