More than 30 Garment District-affiliated vendors ascended to the John E. Reeves Great Hall at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) for this year’s CitySource. Over 850 industry insiders RSVP’d to attend the trade show, organized by FIT and funded by Garment District Alliance (GDA), that introduces local designers to local resources.
A waitlist was made, just in case, with some 50-odd names indicating interest in the Jan. 15 event.
“A big part of the event is being able to engage and network—to really convene with people,” Jacqueline Jenkins, FIT’s interim executive director of the Center for Continuing and Professional Studies (CCPS), told Sourcing Journal a week earlier. “We wanted to manage that properly.”
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Faithful to CitySource lore, around 350 attended, per current calculations.
“At the end of the first CitySource, I think we had probably 1,100 people who registered; there was this huge, pent-up demand,” Andrew Ward, the publicly appointed overseer of CitySource and adjunct instructor of fashion merchandising management at FIT, told Sourcing Journal of the inaugural iteration. “All the vendors were teary eyed because they hadn’t really congregated together in forever; I think not since ’70s.”
The semi-annual tradeshow, now helmed by Ward, began in 2011 with the intention to broker inter-industry bread-breaking. Through this manufactured meet-cute, the designers and businesses of New York City meet local resources, particularly those within the community college’s reach, as relevant to the needs of an aspiring NYC fashion designer.
In an effort to pass the baton, CitySource works to offer emerging artists local opportunities to maintain the city’s status as not a fashion capital, but the world capital of fashion.
“The main reason we do all of this—what’s really been the driving slogan since this began—is the fact that New York is the fashion capital because we have the ability to create brands through these channels, these factories,” Ward said. “Look at Theory. Look at Rag & Bone. These are companies that wouldn’t exist without these local manufacturers.”
Fast forward to today, and the Fashion Walk of Fame organizer is now the lead funder of the show, produced by the SUNY school’s center for interest-based learners. While the alliance funded CitySource’s first IRL show last week—following a four-year, COVID-impacted hiatus, Jenkins emphasized—the nonprofit was financially supporting the show during the slowdown, too. GDA funded the biennial bashes, held on the Cloud instead of Seventh.
Those virtual and live versions featured 20-minute tours, demonstrations and Q&A formatted conversations from all corners of the Garment District’s 6,500 business base.
“Having that real commitment [from GDA] to not only help businesses in the Garment District, but really help local designers to find the places that can support them as well,” Jenkins continued. “At FIT, it’s wonderful for us; it gives our students and alums an opportunity to have access to the various businesses that can support their production.”
Biannually, the locally supportive show brings together a variety of vendors—including pattern and sample makers, production contractors and design services providers, among others—ready to equip attendees with just about any and all of the relevant resources local garment production requires.
And while this was the first in-person iteration since lockdown, CitySource 2025 was no exception.
“It’s exciting to hope that, in between those aisles of 30 vendors, people are networking and building community with others that are looking to build their business,” Jenkins said. “That’s the other real piece of bringing people together under one roof; we want similar businesses to come together so that they can grow and support each other.”
This year’s vendors included New York Embroidery Studio (NYES), a full-service design manufacturer whose 80,000-square-foot lease expansion in 2022 at the Brooklyn Army Terminal was expected to create 500 jobs, injecting $73 million to New Yorkers, the former Deputy Mayor for economic workforce development Maria Torres-Springer said at the time.
While a public update regarding the fulfillment of the initial 500-job projection remains unavailable, NYES did announce the Department of Defense awarded the surface-design atelier a multi-year agreement last summer. Per that contract, NYES will produce about 100,000-ish uniform sets for the U.S. Navy, annually, for the next five years.
“Manufacturing these uniforms here in our Brooklyn factory means that every stitch, seam, and detail will be handled by American workers,” the Alexander Wang associate shared in an August 2024 blog post. “It’s an honor to know that our team of over 100 garment workers will be contributing directly to our nation’s defense.”
During the early afternoon last Wednesday, NYES held a well-received “art of fabric embroidery” table demonstration. The women-owned business had its new direct-to-textile 3D printer, the JB50 TechStyle by Stratasys, in tow.
M&S Schmalberg, too, had a table demonstration. The country’s largest—and last—artificial flower factory was represented by the familial fourth-generation president, Adam Brand, and the 107-year-old plant’s “longest” employee, the fourth-generation “flower man” teased, referencing revered artisan, Miriam Baez, the factory’s flower assembly overseer.
M&S Schmalberg —aka, the brand behind the brand that made those now-canon pink carnation pins adorned by Boygenius last February at the 2024 Grammys—covered the “art of handmade fabric flowers” an hour into the event. It drew a sizeable crowd.
The custom flower fabricator’s neighbor (Sherry Accessories) observed this crowd. Sherry’s founder, Terry Schwartz, ribbed Brand, suggesting someone call his father, M&S Schmalberg’s recently retired third-generation heir, Warren. He happens to be a friend of Schwartz’s, a legend himself amongst the district’s garmentos, as Schwartz made belts—once for Madonna, by the way—before opening his own operation a few years later. When Schwartz did open Sherry’s doors in 1976 on Eighth Avenue, he joined 300 fellow manufacturers companies on that block alone, according to the advanced manufacturing and technology advisement firm, ITAC, which also serves as the NYC chapter of the manufacturing extension partnership (MEP) network.
Now, three manufacturers remain.
The show’s in-person return roster included original CitySource vendors, such as In Style USA, as well.
The 30-plus-year-old one-stop garment manufacturing shop in the Tenderloin said it was one of the first, some decade ago, CitySource supporters. The cut-and-sew production company maintains a relevant rolodex, counting Big Apple brands (like Alice and Olivia, Helmet Lang and Jill Stuart) as clients as well as emerging designers like exclusively-plus-size designer Jason Cauchi and slow fashion designer Izzy Kross.
“CitySource is great platform for all of us to reach a new client base,” Pauline Lock, In Style USA’s product development and bulk production manager, said before catching up with a few industry peers, either exhibiting or attending. “People don’t realize that we exist, you know? It’s as simple as that.”
