Orange Peel Silk and Veggie Cashmere: How the 2026 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Finalists Imagined Signature Silhouettes for a More Sustainable Future

Each year, as part of the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund, the 10 finalists are given a design challenge. This year’s Material Innovation Challenge, presented in partnership with Humane World for Animals, asked the designers to reimagine their brand through the lens of sustainable and bio-based fabrics.

The designers received a stipend and a recommended list of sustainable materials, and each had to use at least two. The CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund finalists, who first met in June, have spent the last few months reexamining their production processes, discovering new materials, and pushing the boundaries of their independent brands. Yesterday evening at the Warren Street Hotel, the group came together once again, this time with the addition of their chosen muses, to present their final designs to the panel of judges composed of Thom Browne, Chloe Malle, Aurora James, Paloma Elsesser, Yumi Shin, Nicole Phelps, Christopher John Rogers, Denise Magid, and Eva Chen. It is always admirable to see young designers constantly reinvent craft, and even more so to widen the possibilities for a sustainable future.

Zane Li and Ayak Veronica, Lii

Zane Li and Ayak Veronica met via the traditional channels of a model-designer duo: runway show castings. Besides her towering stature and runway grace, Veronica quickly became an embodiment of who Li was designing for. “I think she represents what a woman should be,” Li said. “She is bold, and she doesn’t look to fit in with what everyone is wearing.” The look came together similarly, taking Li’s signature motifs—such as a pop of contrasting red cotton jersey and tufts of fur—and reimagining them. This time, the fur was made from natural fibers and shaped into a fuzzy vest and skirt. The shearling-like texture contrasted with a black boxy tank top made of 98% natural latex sourced from the Amazon. A classic Li silhouette, texturally reimagined.

Claire Sullivan and Alix Vernet, Miss Claire Sullivan

While Claire Sullivan’s designs are often fantastical creations for It-girl eccentrics, she drew inspiration for the design challenge from her real-world community. “I wanted to focus on two avenues that I feel like are part of the current structure of Miss. Clare Sullivan and also part of the future of Miss Claire Sullivan,” she explained. “Bridal is a huge part of our business and Alix and I have been friends for almost 10 years, and she’s getting married in November.” Sullivan crafted the poofy, tonal polka-dot minidress from mock silk made entirely from orange peel fiber, along with a matching orange-peel-silk bouquet, both of which Alix will wear again for her ceremony in two weeks. Sullivan donned a similar bridal silhouette, this time in sustainable Tencel from Lenzing. “I wanted to also offer a more ready-to-wear option—or something that could be worn for a bridal shower, or your brunch, or your rehearsal dinner—but also you could turn this into a perfect holiday dress in black with a jewel tone.”

Juju Vera and Agnese Furlanis, Juju Vera

“So challenge is an understatement because I’m a jewelry designer,” says Juju Vera. This was Vera’s first time making ready-to-wear, an exercise that made her think differently about her own jewelry. “The inspiration started with jewelry and the idea of the turban, because I was inspired by this 1970s, Halston-era, Maria Agnelli character.” It was fitting, then, that her muse Agnes Furlanis was also from Venice. The result was a white turban with a turquoise center piece stone, a white zebra-print shawl scarf, a flowing white dress, and an evening pouch with its own turquoise stone, all made from iterations of orange peel fibers. The jewelry also included a large cuff with a turquoise center stone and a turquoise necklace with a strap made from Amazon-sourced vegan leather. “I loved this challenge because it really helped illustrate the Vera woman from head to toe. I’m now inspired to dream bigger and think about other categories I could play with,” she says.

Jamie Haller and Marnie Herald, Jamie Haller

Jamie Haller and her muse, Marnie Herald, have always had a synergy. Herald has been with Haller since the beginning and has modeled for the brand. “I picked Marni because we’re similar hearts,” said Haller. “We’re both similar ages, and we are similar artists and creatives. I see myself in her.” Adhering to her own design codes, Haller re-created a look from her spring collection—an asymmetrical top and sleek trousers—this time using faux silk made from orange-peel fiber, dyed in LA and fused to give the material more structure. A matching pair of black heeled ankle boots was made from faux grape skin leather. The boots were the biggest departure for Haller, whose brand’s centerpiece loafers use animal leather, but they’ve pushed her to think differently about production. “This was a really fun experiment,” she said.

George Inaki and Mona Matsuoka, Milamore

Through his muse, Mona Matsuoka, a Filipino model and painter, George Inaki wanted to represent his brand’s core tenets. “I talk about my Japanese heritage a lot. I wanted to highlight and also embrace my other heritage with the Filipino—I was born in the Philippines, I grew up in Japan, my mother’s Filipino and my dad’s Japanese,” he explains, noting that the name Milamore comes from his Filipino grandmother. As a jewelry designer, he made this challenge his first foray into ready-to-wear. Matsuoka sported a matching set made from an upcycled kimono trimmed with a collar made from dried elephant leaf from the Amazon and amber buttons. For the jewelry, Inaki sourced T-Rex leather from a UK company that uses fossil gene sequencing to re-create the material. The leather cuff bracelet featured a broken-heart clasp of 14k gold, silver, and natural diamonds that recall his core philosophy of kintsugi: “The heart is a symbol of repair,” he said.

Emily Dawn Long and Meadow Walker, Emily Dawn Long

Emily Dawn Long and Meadow Walker are a dynamic duo: Walker starred in Long’s spring 2027 collection film, and the two sported matching silhouettes for the occasion. “For me, it was very much about continuing the design pieces of the collection, but within the challenge’s materials,” she said. This took the form of a backless, long-sleeve version of the spring collection’s “butt-crack” dress, paired with a latex Hawaiian-print skirt. Long sourced the skirt’s material from a Brooklyn studio, where the artisan’s family in Brazil taps trees for their sap and layers it on deadstock twill and cotton. There, it dries on the Amazon forest floor, where bugs fuse into the material and become visible on close inspection. The result is as quirky as the Emily Dawn Long ethos. “That’s something that I want to continue doing with my brand and collection, push materiality and fabric development,” Long says. “This was very up my alley and what I’ve been wanting to do.”

Terrence Zhou and Helen Hong, Bad Binch TongTong

“Usually my muse is myself, but for this challenge, my muse is Helen, my best friend,” laughed Terrence Zhou. For the designer, whose unconventional brand, Bad Binch TongTong, has never followed traditional fashion rules, the challenge felt like a pure opportunity. “My design process is never linear,” he explained. “Being open can get you anywhere. I use my imagination a lot. I was channeling not just my present time, but my inner child and my future.” For the first time, Zhou used vegan leather to create a sculptural brown-and-neon-green body piece that mimicked the shape of a palm tree’s top. He then layered that over a nude bodycon dress with a Bad Binch TongTong signature wire hem. In terms of its avant-garde creativity, “I want to give people hope in this time and era,” he said.

Anna Gustavia Anna Whalen and Gabrielle Richardson, Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen

Anna Gustavia Anna Whalen and Gabrielle Richardson are two downtown darlings who first joined forces when Richardson modeled for Whalen’s eponymous brand. Since then, Whalen has loved her artistic energy. A materials-first designer, Whalen felt comfortable with the challenge’s parameters and set out to reinterpret a silhouette that feels most signature to her. “I used silhouettes that are from spring 2027, and I thought the orange fiber would just kind of elevate this hand-sewn dress into a really nice gown,” she said. The handstitched frock was complemented by faux-fur hip pads made from flax and natural fibers, resembling a worn childhood stuffed animal. It all felt very business as usual for the slow fashion designer. “I was just kind of playing in the same way that I would with deadstock textiles,” she said.

Amir Taghi and Mya Ghorbani, Amir Taghi

For Persian designer Amir Taghi, linking up with his muse, Mya Ghorbani, felt a bit like a fangirl moment. “Her grandmother is one of the most iconic Iranian pop icons from the 1960s until now, and she has always been on my mood board,” he said. When he heard she started modeling, he reached out and was ecstatic to connect. His design, like many patterns and textiles in his brand, was a further extension of his heritage. Both the faux-leather jacket and orange-peel-silk dress represented the spots of the Asiatic Cheetah, of which only 30 remain in Iran. Framing the jacket’s cutout spots, Taghi also included traditional Iranian brasswork, a longtime artisanal technique he loves. The challenge has already inspired his work and reframed how he thinks about production. “I feel like we work with sustainable materials but not with materials made out of plants of that sort,” he said.

Aisling Camps and Arlenis Sosa, Aisling Camps

Aisling Camps and Arlenis Sosa go way back, quite literally. Sosa used to babysit for Camps’s stepdaughter and has since become a part of the family. Sosa’s open-knit asymmetrical dress—made from deadstock silk, yarn, and sustainable latex—layered over a floor-length orange-peel-silk dress easily evoked Camps’s design ethos. “This is Look 21 from our collection,” says the designer, who presented 20 looks in her runway debut last month. “We didn’t have an evening look, and this was a perfect opportunity to add Look 21.” Using the vegetable cashmere from the challenge, Camps paired the formal ensemble with an updated version of the collection’s asymmetrical cardigans, this time featuring a detachable shoulder strap that can be customized with different buttoning arrangements. The look was familiar to Camps’s burgeoning signatures but through an updated lens.