NY Fashion Week Casting Call Draws Diverse Brooklyn Talent

A host of models gathered in Bushwick on Saturday, each hoping to make the final cut for New York Fashion Week.

The casting call organized by SFWRUNWAY, a creatives group, attracted a range of striking faces and figures sporting six-inch heels and form-fitting black outfits. 

Naomi Alabi, founder of SFWRUNWAY, presided over the event alongside a panel of assistants and designers as judges. The team selected 140 models, from sizes 0-6 and sizes 14+, who will walk the catwalk during shows on Wednesday, Sept. 11, where 20 designers, including Hoodlvm, a top three finalist on Netflix’s Next in Fashion Season 2, will show their creations.

Alabi, a Nigerian immigrant, told BK Reader that she was always creative and interested in fashion, but was unsure how to go about joining the industry. She studied pre-dentistry in college and later landed a fashion-related internship at IMG, a sports, fashion and events company, helping to produce shows.

“That was a great foundation for my career, it led me to see what I considered an injustice in the industry at the time, because there weren’t a lot of platforms offering a voice to emerging designers,” Alabi said. 

She launched the SFWRUNWAY platform in 2016 after moving from Los Angeles to Brooklyn and hosts events twice a year to coincide with the global Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) calendar. 

The casting call in Brooklyn this year attracted hundreds of applicants. Some of them had walked the runway before, including Prospect Park resident Kwali Liggons. 

“One thing that SFW does well is how Naomi captures great emerging designers, she’s curating such diverse yet equally compelling talent,” Liggons said. “Across multiple seasons, you’re able to see how the show evolves from venue, to music to production. Seeing the evolution of it has been a blessing.”

Nineteen-year-old Natalia Kwak was among the earliest models to be outside the doors before the casting began. 

“Modeling makes me feel powerful and allows me to step into a version of myself that I didn’t know I had,” Kwak said. “I love the designers that SFW chooses,” she added. “I think they’re always so creative and a mixture of people.” 

Designer Timothy Nashhh was present at the casting call to help select models. The theme of his collection this year is "surrender; the journey from darkness into light," he said.

“We will go from black denim all the way to a platinum silk polyester,” Nashhh said. “It’s talking about how originally we were living in darkness but the moment we give our life to Christ then we’re able to move into the light, and the platinum and the metallic is the light.”

Planning a casting call is extensive, involving a lot of marketing and reaching out to models and agents in their database, Alabi said. SFW makes an effort to leave a positive impact on all the aspiring models, to encourage them whether or not they are selected.

“Even for the person with the highest confidence, it would still be difficult not to personalize the rejection, even if you know that’s the nature of the business,” Alabi said.

Ensuring a diverse pool of talent is a priority for her brand, she added, which is marking a slow but steady shift in the fashion industry at large.

Liggons mused that while diversity on the runway has improved over the years, there is still room for better representation at the corporate level.

“I’m always optimistic that we’re gonna get closer and closer,” he said.