Sustainable brands band together for NYFW show in Bushwick

Impact NYFW, a nonprofit platform for emerging, sustainable designers, is partnering with the Brooklyn-based Vers clothing boutique to throw an alternative New York Fashion Week event this Sunday, February 13 on Willoughby Avenue.

Nearly a dozen local, independent designers—all carried by Vers—will showcase works that prioritize the health of the planet and consist of a mix of upcycled clothing and materials, organic fibers, and locally-sourced fabrics. The title of brand creator is taken more literally at Vers where everyone makes the clothing and accessories themselves by hand. New designs will be shared on a runway and through performance art, music, and dance at the Moonrise Theater in Bushwick—a few doors down from the boutique—so attendees will be able to shop the runway afterwards at Vers, which is celebrating the opening of its new location. The block party affair will also feature gourmet snacks from The Monkey King, a neighboring Cantonese restaurant created by Harvey Wong, that will be opening in 2022.

Designers showing at the event include Vers founder Tilly J Lapidos, who is the creator of the clothing brand Cilium. Lapidos, who identifies as non-binary, has always challenged the concept of gender as it relates to clothing. Cilium designs are body and gender-inclusive styles that can be worn “upside down and flipped around,” meaning that one item can transform into countless looks. In 2014, they shared a studio space with Claire Fleury, who will also be featured in Sunday’s show.

Fleury spent twenty years directing, writing and performing for theater, mainly in Europe, before moving to New York City from Amsterdam in 2011 when she started designing costumes and fashion for nightlife performers and dance companies. Her first three collections were sold at Patricia Field, the eponymous shop of the famed Sex and the City stylist. Fleury has created shows for Fashion Week Brooklyn, The Phluid Project, DapperQ at the Brooklyn Museum, among others. Her presentation this weekend is described as an “an intergenerational experiential dance presentation,” featuring Afrofuturist musical artists, The Illustrious Blacks, and former Warhol superstar and political poet, Penny Arcade.

Other presenters include the MXA, a brand that straddles cultures representing a Mexican and American upbringing, Timothy Westbrook, the former Project Runway contestant who creates delicate, almost Victorian-inspired pieces from repurposed clothing, cutting room floor scraps, and woven grocery store plastic bags, and Lizzy Gee, who has dressed music artists like Grimes and Kimbra, and is the founder and head of production at Impact NYFW—now in its fourth season.

The Vers boutique is located at 1329 Willoughby Avenue in Bushwick, Brooklyn.