Columbia Fashion Week will kick off their 14th year on June 3 with more focus on streetwear and athleisure. The week kickstarts with a launch party at The Nick theater. Along with a runway finale on Saturday, COLAFW is introducing a new “expansive runway” for streetwear on Thursday.
“It's out in the Lincoln tunnel, a pretty historic piece of Columbia,” said Darain Ginyard, COLAFW chief marketing officer. “It's really focused on streetwear and really getting that kind of underground, which is not really underground anymore, but that underground culture on the runway.” When he joined COLAFW as Chief Marketing Officer, Ginyard said he wanted to focus more on data and market trends.
“We really did a survey of what our audience wants and what they felt was missing from the platform, and streetwear was one of the loudest things that the audience was saying that we were missing,” Ginyard said. A model walks the runway at 2022's Columbia Fashion Week. Bella Belrose, the Fashion Designer Coordinator for COLAFW, said it is important to highlight variety and diversity in fashion.
"I think a lot of times when people think of fashion week it is open to high fashion and ready to wear and all the glitz and glam of what fashion week is,” Belrose said. “But with that we have to also highlight a range of fashion that includes more urban and contemporary designers, more streetwear, as well as leisure.” COLAFW pulls designers from Columbia, as well as the entire Southeast r.
