Tracee Ellis Ross, Brandice Daniel and an extraordinary young designer helped Harlem’s Fashion Row turn its 19th annual celebration into a powerful showcase of Black creativity, fashion and possibility.
New York Fashion Week got a dose of history, star power and serious Black fashion energy as Harlem’s Fashion Row celebrated its 19th Annual Fashion Show & Style Awards, bringing together established stars, emerging designers and one very young fashion phenom.
At the center of the evening was founder and CEO Brandice Daniel, whose nearly two decades of work have helped create opportunities for Black designers to build brands, gain visibility and access the resources necessary to grow.
Daniel slayed looking every bit the fashion boss in Sergio Hudson, wearing a fitted black blazer and rhinestone-covered skirt from the designer’s latest collection.
Speaking with Radio One/TV personality Jazmyn Summers on the red carpet, Daniel revealed that Hudson has been her designer of choice for the event since 2021.
“I’ve worn Sergio Hudson since 2021,” Daniel said. “So every year this is the designer. He always knows what I want to say.”
That connection between fashion, identity and storytelling is central to Daniel’s vision.
And this year, one of the most talked-about designers on the runway was just 11 years old.
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Brooke Sumpter, founder of Brooke LauRen Children’s Brand, brought her Cherry Blossom Couture Collection to the runway in collaboration with American Girl, creating fashion for both girls and their 18-inch dolls.
The partnership marks a milestone for American Girl. Sumpter is the first child and first Black child to collaborate with the iconic doll brand on a fashion collection with Harlem’s Fashion Row.
Sumpter has been designing since she was four, and by age seven had already become one of the youngest designers to showcase at New York Fashion Week. Her growing résumé includes designing a look worn by Tabitha Brown to the Children’s & Family Emmy Awards and recreating Janelle Monáe’s 2025 Met Gala look.
But watching her own designs come down the runway alongside American Girl dolls was clearly a different kind of moment.
“Last night was the best night ever,” Sumpter shared. “I’ve been designing since I was four, and watching my own collection actually go down the runway was so cool.”
American Girl describes the collaboration as a celebration of the next generation of fashion and an invitation for girls to imagine, create and believe their ideas can become something tangible.
And that message fits squarely into Daniel’s larger vision for Harlem’s Fashion Row.
Reflecting On 19 Years
Speaking with Radio One/TV personality Jazmyn Summers on the red carpet, Daniel reflected on the organization she launched 19 years ago.
“So 19 years ago, this is what I imagined,” Daniel said. “Actually, I wrote down even more ideas and things that have not come to pass yet.”
Her point was less about arriving at a destination than continuing to build.
“What I’ve learned is that you don’t have to build everything overnight,” she said. “Sometimes it takes time for things to happen.”
One of those long-awaited ideas finally became reality at this year’s event: HFRZ, Harlem’s Fashion Row‘s first magazine-style zine, which Daniel revealed to Summers would be distributed to attendees. The inaugural issue features Tracee Ellis Ross on the cover.
Daniel also offered a glimpse into the organization’s economic mission. The designers featured at the event received more than $40,000 each to produce their collections, a figure that gets at what HFR is trying to accomplish beyond a single night of runway glamour.
“I’m just happy we’re able to make a difference,” Daniel told Summers. “Honestly, I’m happy that the designers tonight were funded. They actually got over $40,000 to produce each one of them.”
That combination of creativity and investment is particularly meaningful in an industry where emerging designers can have the talent and vision but lack the capital to turn those ideas into sustainable businesses.
For Tracee Ellis Ross, supporting that ecosystem is nothing new.
“I’ve been part of this organization and being a part of this event actually since 2015,” Ross revealed to Summers. “…it’s an important moment for us to gather and keep putting us in the right framework and creativity at the forefront.”
Ross arrived at the event fresh from an important chapter of her own career. She recently completed her Broadway debut in Every Brilliant Thing, the acclaimed solo play at the Hudson Theatre. Ross took over the role on July 7 and performed through the show’s August 9 closing.
The Broadway production gave Ross another opportunity to step outside the familiar territory that made her a household name, while bringing the same individuality she has long brought to fashion and screen work.
Designers at HFR
Gunna, who rocked wore a custom-tailored navy blue double-breasted suit styled by Bobby Wesley, challenged young Black designers, “….young Black artists should take full control of their ingenuity and center their vision around Black people.”
The rapper recently expanded his clothing brand by partnering with Under Armour to debut P-Star, acting as its Creative Director and Global Ambassador. This 14-piece lifestyle and fitness-oriented collection dropped late last month, alongside his first official collaborative sneaker, the UA Scorpio.
Along with the American Girl collaboration, the runway featured Spring 2027 collections from Atelier Ndigo, founded by Waina Chancy; Rey Jaiteh, founded by Lamin “Rey” Jaiteh; and Chuks Collins. The event also introduced the inaugural $100,000 Runway Ahead Prize, awarded to Chancy to help scale her brand.
That makes the runway more than a fashion spectacle. It becomes a pipeline: young designers, emerging labels, established talent, investment and increasingly influential platforms all sharing the same room.
Love Island Winner Shares Tea
And then there was Amaya Espinal, wearing Bronx Banco, bringing a very different kind of star power to the carpet.
The Bronx native became one of the breakout personalities of Love Island USA Season 7, where she was crowned the winner alongside Bryan Arenales. The 25-year-old entered the Peacock dating series as a bombshell and became known to fans as “Amaya Papaya,” with her humor, emotional openness and memorable one-liners turning her into one of the season’s most recognizable personalities.
Speaking with Summers, Espinal said that despite the breakup with Bryant, life after the island has been “a really fun rollercoaster.”
Now, she’s expanding beyond reality television and pursuing rap music.
“I always loved poetry,” she shared. “So this is my time to express it and to express my art.”
Harlem’s Fashion Row has spent nearly two decades creating a place where Black fashion isn’t an afterthought, where designers can be funded rather than merely applauded, and where creativity can move from an idea scribbled on a page into a collection walking down a New York runway.
For Daniel, there are still more ideas on that page.
And if an 11-year-old designer can go from designing clothes at four to seeing her own American Girl collection on a New York Fashion Week runway, the next chapter of Harlem’s fashion story may be even bigger than the one that has already been written.
But if there was one through-line connecting the evening’s biggest names with its youngest designer, it was the idea that creative possibilities expand when people are given the opportunity and resources to pursue them.
That’s the space Harlem’s Fashion Row has been building for 19 years: one where a legendary actress, an influential fashion executive, an emerging designer and an 11-year-old girl with a dream can all occupy the same runway.
You can donate to support the organization at HarlemsFashionRow.com
Article by Jazmyn Summers. Photos by Dominique Maddox. You can hear Jazmyn every morning on “Jazmyn in the Morning “on Sirius XM Channel 362 Grown Folk Jamz. Subscribe to Jazmyn Summers’ YouTube. Follow her on Facebook and Instagram.