New York Fashion Week 2026 preview: CFDA’s Steven Kolb on Made in America and rising designers

New York Fashion Week kicks off this Wednesday with the spring/summer 2027 Ralph Lauren and Coach shows. Coach, which celebrates its 85th anniversary this year, has become one of the success stories of American fashion. Led by British designer Stuart Vevers, Coach has thrived thanks to its well-designed and accessibly priced products, and its involvement in pop culture phenomena like last summer’s hit series The Summer I Turned Pretty. Unlike their European counterparts that have been alienating aspirational luxury consumers with constant price increases, US labels such as Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger and Tory Burch have stayed relevant by catering to customers who are becoming more mindful when it comes to luxury purchases. Their success, however, belies a polarised market where top brands reign supreme while many independent designers often struggle to make ends meet and have to rely on collaborations with sportswear giants or prize money from industry awards to keep their businesses afloat. Steven Kolb, CEO and president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) – a non-profit that serves as the governing body of the US fashion industry – agrees that bigger brands have always dominated the industry but adds that smaller businesses have their own ways of cultivating customers. “I don’t think there’s anything new about more established brands like Coach or Ralph Lauren, which everybody is talking about in American fashion as a model of success and even as an example for some of the European houses that have been struggling,” says Kolb in an interview. “They’ve been in business a very long time. Success comes with age and experience. There’s a trajectory of success from where you are and how you build a brand. Is it harder to start and build a brand today than it was 40, 50 years ago or 20, 30 years ago? Certainly. There are different circumstances that influence how one builds a brand: the number of designers and brands in the space, the access to knowledge and information on the consumer level, how she’s going to shop, where before maybe she only knew certain brands, but now there’s such great awareness and a lot more choice.” Designers these days can reach clients by staging pop-up shops or by holding trunk shows, without having to rely on fickle department stores and online luxury retailers, which back in the day represented a lifeline for independent labels. Kolb mentions Amir Taghi and Emily Dawn Long as examples of how to build a business without adhering to tried-and-tested formulas that are not relevant any more. Taghi, for instance, recently opened a summer store in Aspen, the high-end resort in Colorado, while Dawn Long works from a very cool space in the Lower East Side that also functions as her showroom. She will present her spring/summer 2027 collection with a film, reveals Kolb, adding that both designers are finalists of the CFDA Vogue Fashion Fund, a competition that provides winners with financial support and a mentorship programme. The fashion industry is rife with awards for emerging designers, not only in the US but around the world – from the Paris-based LVMH Prize to Qatar’s Fashion Trust Arabia. Kolb is a firm believer in the vital role these initiatives play but explains that young designers should prioritise building a strong foundation rather than relying too heavily on them. “There are a lot of awards and programmes that young designers can apply to and I encourage every designer to apply to every single one of them,” he says. “If there’s money that they can access, and if it’s mentorship that they can gain, why wouldn’t they go for it? But what happens to some is that they build their business based on applying for programmes versus really focusing on building a business based on product and design. That’s just a catch that I think a designer has to be very careful about. You can’t sustain a business by just winning prize after prize after prize after prize, no matter how talented you are. You really have to learn how to build, price, sell, and grow and produce. So I would say that is definitely just a caveat to be careful about. I think the prizes are good. I think they bring visibility. The 10 designers who are currently in Fashion Fund, I don’t think there’s one of them that would tell you that the experience so far hasn’t been great. I see the ones from the past all the time and all of them tell us that it was a turning point for them in their careers. All of a sudden, they were just at a different level.” While the CFDA Vogue Fashion Fund and the CFDA Fashion Awards are the most high-profile initiatives under the remit of the CFDA, the entity has also been trying to revive New York’s garment industry with projects that predate the current pivot to Made in America of the US government. “We do a lot of work in that space,” explains Kolb. “I think the misconception of Made in America is that production is going to onshore or come back in a mega way but you’re never going to make things like T-shirts or [sneakers] here. That’s just not in our future. But as a kind of development for small batch quantity or [high] quality, that’s kind of where we at CFDA have been able to support designers.” He brings up the Local Production Fund, in partnership with the New York City Economic Development Corporation, and the Fashion Manufacturing Initiative as examples of the CFDA’s efforts. These programmes offer stipends to brands and grants to factories that base some of their production in New York. As someone who has attended countless fashion shows in New York and around the world, Kolb says that not every designer needs to invest in one to present their collections. He can’t deny, however, the appeal of a well-staged runway, like the theatrical productions of Thom Browne, the New York-based designer who also acts as chairman of the CFDA. Although Browne often shows in Paris and more recently Milan – his brand is owned by the Zegna Group, based in Italy – he is closing New York Fashion Week this season. He is one of a handful of US labels that have managed to build a loyal following in the luxury sphere. Khaite, founded by Catherine Holstein, is another high-end brand that never fails to please editors and buyers with directional collections that are quintessentially American yet have global appeal. Kolb, who has one of the busiest schedules during New York Fashion Week and makes an effort to attend almost every show, singles out a few other labels he’s looking forward to checking out this season. Kallmeyer, Sandy Liang, Christian Siriano and LoveShackFancy demonstrate the diversity of offerings of New York Fashion Week while London-based, American designer Conner Ives and Sabyasachi, India’s leading luxury label – both showing in New York this season – are examples of the global outlook of the New York shows. Calvin Klein and Michael Kors, two brands that have become synonymous with American fashion and have been undergoing some changes in recent years, are also on the calendar as is DVF, another very New York brand where designer Henry Zankov will make his debut. Editors’ favourite Marc Jacobs is not on schedule: Jacobs, whose brand was recently sold by LVMH to a joint venture formed by WHP Global and G-III Apparel Group, showed his latest collection in June. “Clearly, tariffs, the economy, the war in the Middle East, all of that continues to be a thorn in the side of the businesses but there’s a lot of excitement,” Kolb says, adding that you can’t dismiss the importance of the US market. “The truth is America is a huge market, gigantic. There’s a reason a lot is shown in New York, there’s a reason Gucci showed here.” Kolb certainly has a point. In recent months, Chanel, Moncler, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Dior, Zegna and Hermès have all held shows in locations ranging from snow-capped mountains in Aspen to an abandoned underground subway station in Manhattan. Their US counterparts will get the chance to shine in the spotlight as New York Fashion Week kicks off a month of back-to-back shows and presentations that will end in Paris next month.