This past month, we participated in the New York Fashion Innovation Center’s internal conference, held over two focused days on June 16th and 17th, 2025, at RPI’s campus in Troy NY. The gathering brought together a diverse group of designers, manufacturers, farmers, researchers and industry stakeholders, all united by a shared goal: to rebuild a textile supply chain rooted in New York State.
The Innovation Center is funded by a 5 year, $10 million grant from New York State, and its work is centered on rethinking fashion production through the lens of regional resilience, sustainability and next-generation materials.
Day 1: Exploring Material Futures
Our first day was filled with presentations from experts in three key areas we’ve been tasked to focus on:
- Plant-based fibers (such as hemp and flax). NY is still far behind on plant fibers, while it’s seeing more success in places like North Carolina and Colorado. We are working with experts and advocates in this space to help bring hemp production to NY State.
- Biomaterials (emerging technologies that blend biology and design, like mycelium leather or lab-grown silk). Biomaterials are by far the most expensive to develop, but there are exciting companies like Ecovative and Uncaged in NYState working on some very exciting material. You can see a prototype we made from Ecovative mycelium from our Sept 2024 runway show. Most biomaterials are still too expensive to produce affordable products.
- Animal fibers (with a focus on wool, alpaca and other fiber-producing animals raised in the Northeast). Of all three categories, we are most ahead in wool. NY used to be the second largest producer of wool, and we only have a cottage industry at the moment. Our main focus is to build a wool warehouse so that at least wool in NY can find a place to be processed, whereas currently, much of our wool is discarded to landfills.
Each presentation on the three focus areas invited us to consider not just the materials themselves, but the infrastructure and partnerships needed to scale them in a meaningful, regional way.
Work Groups: Turning Ideas into Frameworks
We then broke out into small working groups to brainstorm potential applications, identify gaps and propose solutions. These conversations were rich and productive — ranging from how to make local wool more commercially viable, to building a roadmap for regenerative textile farming in the Hudson Valley and beyond.
Day 2: Aligning on Action
On the second day, we reconvened to share our findings and begin organizing them into real, actionable next steps. Themes emerged around shared processing infrastructure, improved education and training, and greater collaboration across industries — from agriculture to design. If you are interested in joining a workgroup, you can contact us at inquiry@madexhudson.com.
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Why This Matters
Participating in this conference reaffirmed our belief in the potential of New York’s fashion ecosystem — not as a fast-fashion hub, but as a model for regional, sustainable and innovation-driven production. There’s a long way to go, but the energy in the room was a clear sign that real change is possible.
We’re excited to continue contributing to this work and to share updates as these ideas begin to take shape.
This year, we are running an accelerator program for the first 8 grant recipients from the NYFIC grant program. We hope to make this a publicly accessible accelerator in the future.
—Eric De Feo
