KidSuper Gives 5 Emerging Designers the Runway at Brooklyn Borough…

A man of the people.

Instead of showing his own new collection of clothes at New York Fashion Week, designer KidSuper gave his runway time to five emerging Brooklyn designers.

“The People’s Runway” brought together designers Ahmrii Johnson, Daveed Baptiste, Kent Anthony, Rojin Jung, and Shriya Myneni to show off their wide range of aesthetics and worlds.

“As a person growing up in Brooklyn, you hear about people getting grants and support from the city. And you’re like, how the hell did they get that? How do you even apply? The connection between that and the real creatives is pretty loose,” Colm Dillane, better known as KidSuper, told Vogue Business in a profile ahead of the event. “So I thought I could be a good bridge, because a lot of the young creative designers in New York are following me, so I could be the connector.”

The show was a partnership between KidSuper and the Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso. According to Vogue Business, it was funded by “a mix of city support and external sponsors like prebiotic soda brand Poppi.”

@cfda Show-stopping artists came through for the 5 Brooklyn-based designers at last night’s KidSuper show ✨@NE-YO @Kill Bill @Wisdom Kaye @FERG #mslaurynhilledit ♬ original sound - All Things Rap

It was also free and open to the public.

Dillane also told the publication that providing financial support to the designers was paramount, considering it can cost thousands and sometimes into the millions to put on a show.

“The fact that we could do this for New York Fashion Week with the Brooklyn borough president at a crazy venue — if you tried to do this alone, it would cost you millions of dollars,” he said. “The fact that they’re getting to do it is really cool.”

“I was most excited about the mentorship portion of this, because we’ve been shooting in the dark,” Kent Anthony said. “We’ve been very scrappy, trying to figure out how to build this from the ground up. So as much as I am excited about the runway, I was more excited about getting guidance from one of the vets.”

Like any fashion show, it brought a few big stars, including Ne-Yo, Lauryn Hill, and Kodak Black. But the real star was the huge crowd of everyday people who showed up to support.

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