Made-In-Midtown: Creativity in Flux

"New York City is planning for the future of the Garment District, the heart of American fashion. This could transform the fashion industry and Midtown Manhattan.

Made in Midtown studies the relationship between the industry and the neighborhood, and asks: Should creative industries matter to New York?"

Yeohlee Teng and Diane von Furstenberg expound on coral reefs and beehives as metaphors for the complexity of NYC's garment district and the diversity within:

Made in Midtown from Design Trust for Public Space on Vimeo.

Congratulations to the dynamic team at Design Trust for Public Space, for putting this vital pop up exhibit and dialogue in motion. Guy Trebay of the NY Times Fashion & Style section also had a thing or two to say recently about urban ecosystems and place-based creativity zones. The "interconnected network of designers, wholesalers, buttonmakers, trimmings houses, patternmakers, pieceworkers, laborers, carters, shippers, consumers and retailers...drive fashion innovation and entrepreneurship."


"Made in Midtown is about much more than fashion. It's about one of the last neighborhoods in Manhattan that has not yet been remade by recent waves of new development. It's about jobs and immigrant workers. It's about the decisions city officials make to support certain kinds of businesses and land-use development, whether it's baseball stadiums, high-rise condominiums, or factories."



Participate and contribute to the dialogue here and here. Sustainability and (bio)diversity come in many shapes and forms. Texture rules.

(All photos by Abigail Doan)