Hudson Valley Sustainable Fashion Week’s Organic Runway Returns

Hudson Valley Sustainable Fashion Week (HVSFW) returns in 2025 with its signature celebration of eco-conscious design, creative innovation, and community engagement. The annual event, with its banner Organic Runway, has become the connective tissue for locally based designers, artisans, and advocates championing sustainability in fashion. From clothing swaps to mending workshops, pop-ups, HVSFW aims to promote a circular clothing economy and connect like-minded fashion lovers, demonstrating how style and environmental responsibility can coexist seamlessly.

On September 26, the Organic Runway fashion show will bring sustainable haute-couture back to the farm field, for a runway show amidst the fruit trees at Rose Hill Farm in Red Hook. Taking place at sunset with stunning views of the Catskills, this curated fashion show brings together locally based designers committed to ethical and sustainable production practices.

The event emphasizes the use of organic fabrics, recycled materials, and low-impact dyes, offering attendees a chance to see firsthand how forward-thinking design can reduce the industry’s environmental footprint. Models strut the grassy runway in garments that tell a story—from biodegradable evening gowns to upcycled streetwear—showing that sustainability can be as visually compelling as it is responsible.

This year’s participating brands are Caitlyn Kiara Couture, La Vie Apres L’Amour, Mixed Color, MLE, Olga Ella, Slow Process, So Vicki, Touch Threads, and two students from the Marist Fashion Design Program. 

“The central point of this fashion show has always been to amplify the amazing work being done in our beautiful region by the best designers we have,” says Joanne Louis-Paul, HVSFW’s chief communications officer. “We want to promote a circular fashion economy and exposing talented makers to a large, interested audience is our way of building demand.”

The event, which runs from 4-9pm, includes live music from Ginger Winn at 5pm with the runway show at 6pm. The evening is meant to double as a platform for connection and storytelling, spotlighting designers’ journeys, sourcing practices, and the social impact behind each collection. Audiences will have the opportunity to buy the items they see in the runway show as well as meet the designers and mingle, drink, and dance from 6:30 to 9pm. 

The agricultural setting for HVSFW isn’t an afterthought or a gimmick but rather a very visceral and sensorial reminder that most of the materials for clothing are harvested from the Earth, and our millions of tons of annual textile waste go back to the Earth. As well as being a beautiful and bucolic background, the farm as runway underscores the importance and urgency of the sustainable fashion movement. 

“What I love about this event is that each designer brings their distinct voice to the natural runway,” says Annie McCurdy, founder of Newburgh-based brand So Vicki and the HVSFW’s chief operations officer. “This show offers a reminder that there is so much possibility in working with reclaimed materials and it reconnects viewers with the true source: Earth.”

In addition to the runway show, an onsite interactive art installation drives home this point. “The Discarded Body,” by Millbrook-based brand consultancy Atelier Oluwatosin, represents the amount of textile waste one person produces each year. Guests are invited to interact with the installation.

Another new feature of this year’s event is the Global Fashion Exchange’s Bring One, Take One rack where attendees can trade their own used item for a “new” secondhand garment. There will also be a chance to walk the runway and get your photo taken, so come in your (sustainable) Sunday best.

“I feel like our third annual fashion show will be our best one yet because of the amazing partners and community members who are collaborating with us,” says La Vie Apres L’Amour designer and HVSFW founder Kaitlyn Murray. “I knew I couldn’t do this alone, but with many, we can really make an impact, and I am so excited for the many who are joining forces with us this year.”

Hudson Valley Sustainable Fashion Week’s Organic Runway 2025 will take place on September 26, 4-9pm at Rose Hill Farm in Red Hook. Venue access will close between 5:50pm and 6:30pm to minimize distractions and put the sole focus on the sunset runway show. (Access will reopen afterward until the event’s close at 9pm.)

Buy your ticket online.

This article appears in September 2025.