When the Brooklyn Fashion + Design Accelerator (BFDA) announced it was closing in June 2019, it felt like the end of something special. Looking back now, several years later, it’s easier to see what that experiment actually left behind.
The Experiment of a Fashion Incubator
The Brooklyn Fashion + Design Accelerator (BFDA) was a sustainability-focused fashion incubator created by Pratt Institute that operated from 2014 to 2019. The program brought together designers, researchers, and entrepreneurs exploring new models for responsible fashion businesses.
The BFDA was located in the old Pfizer building in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn — just down the street from the Marcy Projects where Jay-Z grew up. Inside that historic building, designers, researchers, and entrepreneurs were experimenting with new ways to build fashion businesses that were more responsible, more transparent, and more connected to local production.
Sustainable Designers Working Side by Side
I was selected as a Venture Fellow at the Brooklyn Fashion + Design Accelerator, joining a cohort of designers and entrepreneurs working alongside researchers and faculty to explore sustainable materials and responsible manufacturing systems.
One of the interesting challenges of the BFDA was that it was built within an academic institution. That structure brought tremendous benefits — access to research, resources, and a community of faculty and students exploring sustainability from many angles. But it also meant that the program operated within the realities of a university system: layers of approvals, budget structures, and administrative processes that sometimes move very differently than the fast-paced needs of entrepreneurs building businesses in the real world.
At its best, the program created something far more valuable than infrastructure: it created a community.
Our studios were only a few feet apart. On any given day, you could walk ten steps and be deep in conversation with another founder about manufacturing challenges, materials sourcing, pricing strategy, or the tiny design decisions that shape a product.
We weren’t just working near each other — we were deeply invested in one another’s companies.
We shared resources, hard lessons, and the small victories that come with building something meaningful from scratch.
Mentors, Materials, and Big Conversations about Sustainability
The accelerator also attracted an incredible network of mentors and industry leaders who generously shared their knowledge. Each week brought guidance on production, finance, sustainability, and marketing from people who had spent decades navigating the fashion industry.
One of the most influential mentors during my time there was Tara St. James, founder of the label Study NY and a leading voice in sustainable fashion. Tara ran the production lab at BFDA while also mentoring designers across the program. She was an early advocate of seasonless collections and a non-traditional fashion calendar — ideas that challenged the industry’s relentless cycle of overproduction.
Working with Tara fundamentally shaped how I think about building a responsible brand. She brought a rare combination of technical knowledge, strategic insight, and genuine care for the designers in the program. Her commitment to sustainability was never theoretical — she invested deeply in each of us as we navigated the complexities of building businesses in a difficult industry.
Guest speakers from companies like Nudie Jeans and Warby Parker visited, offering candid insights into how mission-driven brands scale while staying true to their values.
Those conversations were invaluable.
Why the Designers Matter More Than the Program
More than anything, the accelerator brought together an extraordinary group of designers who were each approaching sustainability from different angles. Some were exploring circular materials, others were rethinking production systems, and others were building brands rooted in ethical manufacturing or social impact.
During my time there, I had the opportunity to work alongside brands like Kirrin Finch, a Brooklyn-based apparel company designing menswear-inspired clothing for women and non-binary people, and Fair Harbor, a sustainable apparel company known for turning recycled plastic bottles into performance fabrics for swimwear and everyday clothing. Snowe Home, a thoughtfully designed home goods brand focused on timeless essentials; GRAMMAR, a clothing label built around beautifully constructed wardrobe staples; and Suzanne Rae, whose work blends artful design with responsible production and Alder New York, thoughtfully crafted botanical skincare by alder new york
That community — the designers themselves — was always the most valuable part of the experience. Seeing so many different approaches to building responsible brands under one roof made it clear that there isn’t just one path toward a more sustainable fashion industry — there are many.
It was also during this time that I was introduced to FABSCRAP, the nonprofit working to rescue unused textiles from the New York fashion industry and keep them out of landfills — a connection that continues to shape how I source materials today.
That same community also led to opportunities like participating in the Craft the Leather program in Italy, where we toured vegetable-tanned leather tanneries and water treatment facilities to better understand the environmental impact of leather production.
Over the five years that the Venture Fellowship existed, designers were given an extraordinary opportunity to explore sustainable materials, new manufacturing models, and the realities of building independent fashion businesses. Many of us formed lasting collaborations and friendships that continue to influence our work today.
The truth is that incubators come and go.
The BFDA also wasn’t the first effort I’d seen to reconnect fashion design with local manufacturing. A few years earlier, I had been involved with Manufacture New York, a scrappy incubator built by entrepreneurs determined to rebuild domestic production infrastructure — sometimes quite literally from the ground up.
Programs like these are ambitious attempts to support creative businesses in a notoriously difficult industry.
Not all of them last. But the ideas they help spark continue to ripple outward.
Programs like BFDA were never really about the building or the institution.
They were about the people willing to step into the arena — to test ideas, question old systems, and try to build something better.
Not every designer from those early cohorts is still in business Fashion is a difficult path, and many talented people eventually move on to other chapters of their lives.
But some of us are still here.
And perhaps more importantly, the knowledge, connections, and lessons from those years continue to ripple outward — helping the next generation of designers find their footing a little faster than we did.
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