Thread Lightly
Thread Lightly, originally a theme in 2025 Street Works Earth, invites us to wonder together about how we adorn our bodies, as an expression of identity, memory, and care. In 2026, we going further by launching a sustainable fashion design competition in Street Works Earth 2026, on September 20, the first day of NY Climate Week.
Photo caption: 2025 Street Works Earth. Kaleidospace's Cloth Culture: Cut from the same Cloth. Photo by Brentton Wilson.
Sustainable Fashion Designer of the Year Awards
We’re bringing a fashion competition to 2026 Street Works Earth to celebrate designers, artists, and neighbors creating outfits that show how care for people, communities, and the planet can be gorgeous and inventive. Fashion designers at any level — self-taught, students, emerging, or established — are welcome to submit one original sustainable outfit. Designers must be available in person in Queens, NYC, September 20-27 to present their work (exact day to be confirmed.)
Designers will present their look on a live model and briefly introduce their piece to the crowd. The winner will be announced during the festival. More details soon. What matters most to us is your intention, learning, and care. For now, register, read the articles below, and start imagining!
Designers Register now!
Designers, register through June 26! You do not need to submit designs yet, only let us know you intend to.
Submit designs
Registered designers will be able to upload their design July 1– August 5. Sustainability standards for design will be published soon.
Community Voting
Designs will be published for community to vote on from 9/1, ending during the Festival. After screening for eligibility, we’ll publish designs for community to vote on which they think embodies the fashion of our future.
how
Everyone can have a sustainable fashion strategy. It has 3 parts: understanding what and where harm is happening, understanding economic and cultural systems that drive that harm, and creating an artistic practice that sees creativity in system change.
Why
The fashion industry has organized crime through modern slavery and is responsible for around 10% of global emissions, the cause of climate change. It also uses up a huge amount of water, at a time when water is getting scarce because of climate change.
But responsibility for this crisis shouldn’t fall on individuals. Alternatives are expensive, and it isn't our fault we’re raised from babyhood in a system that tells us we're not enough — not beautiful enough, not wealthy enough, not popular enough — as we are. These messages are even worse for people of color.
We need policy makers to disrupt it, and artists who can shift our relationships to adornment, by sharing new stories about what we wear and creating habits of self-care in a culture of collective care that centers dignity, creativity, and justice.
2025 Street Works Earth Activities
Through activities like sneaker customization, fabric painting, upcycling, and community beading, we celebrated the personal, cultural, and political power of what we wear or carry. 2025 Street Works Earth activities were co-designed by Kaleidospace, Street Works, MJN, and We Act for Environmental Justice.
Check here for activities designed for Thread Lightly. And click here to see how all activities weaved together. If you have experience in New York City leading on the topic or know somebody that does, we'd love to hear from you. See a contact form below.
