Sophie Theallet - Presentation
Last year, the Bloomberg administration, alongside the CDFA, set up the Fashion Incubator initiative. In order to be eligible, entrants had to be "working designers" with orders from retailers, to have been in business for more than a year and a half, have a member of staff to support, have been in receipt of "substantive editorial coverage" and to submit a business plan, detailing this. As a reward for jumping through all those hoops, a chosen 12 would win the main prize of moving into one of the design spaces in the Fashion Incubator space. Aside from being situated in the heart of the Garment District, the spaces (800 to 1000 square feet) would be rentable at subsidized rates ranging from $1,500 to $2,000, knocked down from $2,900.
So who are the lucky 12? That would be Prabal Gurung, Sophie Theallet, Jolibe's Joel Diaz, Alice Ritter, Gemma Redux's Rachel Dooley, Bibhu Mohapatra, Waris Ahluwalia of House of Waris, Maxwell Osborne and Dao-Yi of Public School, Justin Giunta of Subversive Jewelry, Ruby Kobo's Yuvi Alpert and Danna Kobo, Grey Ant's Grant Krajecki and Lewis's Alison Lewis. They'll soon take up residence in the spaces, which each come with a two-year lease. We look forward to seeing what fashion-forward creations come out of what will clearly be such a creative hub.
