The Visionary Series: Jay Calderin, Founder of Boston Fashion Week
“I wanted to shine a light on what our local fashion professionals were doing, and 26 years later I still do.”
In 1995 Jay Calderin launched Boston Fashion Week with a small and dedicated group of local designers, drawing attention to the diversity of talent that fuels the industry in our region. Looking forward to celebrating its 26th year, during a time of unprecedented challenges, Boston Fashion Week will again shine a light on the creativity, compassion and collaboration that define the business of fashion in Boston and beyond.
Turn your attention anywhere fashion is being researched, exhibited, taught, disrupted or created in Massachusetts, and you will find Jay Calderin working his magic. A champion of fashion students, up and comers, veterans, rebels and innovators, Calderin sees Boston’s fashion sector as a community of change makers. For his dedication to advancing the local industry and his mentorship of students and working professionals alike, we are proud to recognize Jay Calderin in our Visionary Series.
Ask anyone in local fashion about Jay and they will comment on his omnipresence and influence.
Graciela Rivas in a dress of her own design.
Womenswear designer Graciela Rivas launched her label, Graciela Rivas Collection, after earning her business degree. Like many successful women designers in Boston, Rivas taught herself to sew and design.
She explains, “Through the longevity of his career and by playing so many different roles, from founder, director, coordinator, author, contributor, facilitator, and professor [Jay] has shown that he is a powerhouse, an influence, a pillar, and a key element for the fashion industry here in Boston.”
Sondra Grace, long time Chair of the Fashion Design Department at MA College of Art and Design (MassArt) endorsed him on LinkedIn writing, “Jay Calderin is a moving force for fashion in the City of Boston.”
In addition to his role as Founder and Executive Director of Boston Fashion Week, Calderin is the Director of Community Relations and an instructor at Boston’s School of Fashion Design on Newbury Street. He teaches studio classes at the Museum of Fine Arts and ran a program called Fashion Tales for the Boston Public Library. He is a prolific author, having written many books on the fashion industry, including What They Didn't Teach You in Fashion School, The Fashion Design Reference & Specification Book , Fashion Design Essentials and co-author of Native Fashion Now about North American Indian Style.
A New York native, Calderin left the grind of the New York City fashion machine to connect with a more intellectual and collaborative community in Boston. While he had considered leaving fashion, he instead leaned in, inspired by the local creative culture, the diverse community and a fashion market underrepresented by the media. The Boston fashion world has benefited ever since.
According to Calderin, part of the inspiration for starting Boston Fashion Week (BFW) was covering the first few seasons of 7th on Sixth for a cable program he produced here in the early ‘90s. He studied the way Fern Mallis, known as the Godmother of Fashion, consolidated the citywide events of New York Fashion Week into a cohesive series of runway shows under the tents at Bryant Park.
“I learned so much from just observing her and studying the presentation model they were using to bring New York designers together,” he recalls. “It was also being used to focus the media/public’s attention. I had only been in Boston for a few years at that point but had already met so many talented fashion professionals that I thought with some tweaking we could use a similar format here.”
Every year since, Calderin has grown BFW with increasing numbers of fashion shows, lectures and events, all the while maintaining a focus on inclusivity and access.
Petra Slinkard is the Director of Curatorial Affairs and The Nancy B. Putnam Curator of Fashion and Textiles at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM). When asked what makes the Boston market so different than say, New York or London, she likes to call out a favorite saying of Jay’s: Boston fashion is smart.
“Boston is a connoisseur’s market. Jay is an ally - a scholar, an author and a designer. He sees the fashion scene in Boston from a bird’ s eye view and so is able to make connections. He has always worked hard to elevate others. In fashion that can be like herding cats. But he always makes it work.”
Slinkard worked with Calderin on exhibiting work he created for the Fashion Accessibility Project in 2016.
An accessible party dress designed by Jay Calderin in collaboration with the client, donated to the Fashion and Textiles Collection of the Peabody Essex Museum. Photo, Jay Calderin
Slinkard recalls how closely Calderin collaborated with the client - a doctor who uses a wheelchair - in imagining the dress. “They designed it together.”
The black evening gown, which was featured in the New York Times as an example of next-generation adaptive design, is on display in a new gallery at PEM opened in 2019.
“What a fantastic work of art to symbolize and to represent so many different, important aspects of art and culture in the 21st century,” Slinkard says of the piece. It’s a “perfect combination of smart in a dapper, natty sort of way, an MIT / tech way and a creative, resourceful way.”
Over the last two decades, Calderin has used Boston Fashion Week and his other platforms to “redefine what a fashion week looks like” and in doing so has helped to shape Boston’s fashion identity. He also prioritizes connecting people in order to create a cohesive community.
“He helped put Boston on the fashion map. He let the press know we were here. He had his finger on the pulse, and he did everything to get the press to cover it.”
David Josef, a designer who has dressed media correspondents, Broadway legends and even Bill Belichick’s daughter-in-law for important formal occasions, was one of the designers who helped Calderin launch BFW 26 years ago. Other founding designers include Denise Hajjar and couture bridal designer Daniel Faucher.
When we spoke by phone, David fondly called Calderin “the Grande Dame” of Boston fashion.
Almost everyone I spoke with about Jay describes the Boston fashion community as close-knit and supportive. It’s a common depiction used to differentiate this region from other fashion markets. “We are such a community. We all do different things, so we are not competitive,” says Josef. BFW never tried to be NYFW or LFW, it's resourceful, diverse and collaborative - small is good. Since the onset of the pandemic, Josef pivoted his business to produce PPE. Though he still designs evening gowns for some loyal clients, he’s dedicated to making masks and giving back. Here, he says, it’s based on love.
The sentiment was echoed by designer Melina Cortes-Nmili, founder of label Lalla Bee who met Calderin when she “auditioned” to show her work during BFW 2016. Self-taught and new to the area, she says she didn’t have a network. Being welcomed by Jay and his team and being introduced to Boston from the runway opened new doors. “It was like entering Boston through the grand door,” she says.
Melina Nmili in one of her own designs.
Diana Jaye Coluntino met Jay Calderin at MassArt when she was a student. After knowing him for decades, she sees his greatest strength as keeping people connected. Coluntino’s focus is on high sustainability, craft, local production and zero waste, something Calderin focuses on passionately in both his teaching and his programming. In her current role as Director of Lowell’s Fashion Makerspace and Fabric Discovery Center, Coluntino supports local designers by providing a work space, access to equipment, networking and support. Though, thanks in part to the large footwear corporations based in Massachusetts, local manufacturing is not as sustainability focused as it should be, “its not the trailblazing place it might be,” Coluntino agrees the community is strong. The smaller scale in Boston allows for a more holistic approach and a genuine culture of inclusivity.
Dame Vivienne Westwood’s appeal for her SS19 collection: “Buy less, Dress up.” In her eyes, “Consumption is the enemy of culture.”
The worlds of the fashion business and international fashion weeks twenty six years ago would be nearly unrecognizable today. Even before COVID shut down large sections of manufacturing, shipping and retail that deliver global apparel, the fashion industry faced grave challenges. According to the World Economic Forum, fashion, one of the worst polluting industries, currently contributes 10% of the world’s carbon emissions and is the world’s second largest consumer of water.
Fast fashion (think H&M, Zara, UNIQLO, Gap) perpetuates child labor and modern slavery practices in countries like China, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Cambodia, according to Verisk Maplecroft’s annual Child Labour Index.
Fast fashion also contributes to the industry’s unfathomable waste. Clothing production has almost doubled since 2000, but most of that gets thrown away; 85% of textiles end up in landfills each year.
Calderin, like Coluntino, is part of a growing legion of fashion professionals working to raise awareness of these environmental threats and innovate towards industry solutions.
Vogue editor Anna Wintour said of the pandemic: "I think it's an opportunity for all of us to look at our industry and to look at our lives, and to rethink our values, and to really think about the waste, and the amount of money, and consumption, and excess that we have all indulged in and how we really need to rethink what this industry stands for."
To visionary Jay Calderin, hope for the future comes from working with students and exploring new paths to a vibrant, sustainable and responsible fashion industry. In his classes last spring, Calderin says he heard sadness and frustration from design students deprived of meaningful moments due to COVID. While students of all disciplines missed out on traditional graduations, fashion students lost an additional, very significant rite of passage: the student fashion show.
Labels I Am Kréyol and Brand Nubia are both run by up and coming designers who showed at Boston Fashion Week early on in their careers.
This year Calderin has dedicated 2020’s virtual calendar of Boston Fashion Week events to the next generation, highlighting area schools with robust fashion programs: Boston Arts Academy, School of Fashion Design, MASSART, Framingham State, and Lasell College. Students from each school have the opportunity to show their work in a virtual fashion presentation, available to everyone via the BFW website.
This is just the most recent way Jay Calderin shows his support and mentorship for young designers. As the fashion industry faces existential challenges, Boston will be well positioned to innovate and lead thanks to Jay and his community of fashion insiders.
“At events like BFW, the new generation has the chance to meet with their peers, to celebrate their hard work, and be part of this fashion community. There’s no question this is important for a young designer, since it helps build the confidence they need to continue putting in the long hours required to be a designer. “ Graciela Riva
Check out the entire schedule of events for this year’s all virtual Boston Fashion Week, October 4 - 10.
Title photo of Jay Calderin by Joel Benjamin.
