At the beginning of March, nonprofit organization INTERFORM announced that it had made the difficult decision to cancel all of its programming for 2025, including Northwest Arkansas Fashion Week. This news came shortly after INTERFORM CEO Robin Wallis Atkinson made the personal decision to step down from the organization at the end of February. Shortly after both of these announcements, the organization’s board of directors released a final statement that after eight years, INTERFORM would be closing for good.
This was quite the shock to the fashion community, especially those who had already participated in this year’s open call for models and designers for Northwest Arkansas Fashion Week. A burgeoning tradition and form of artistic expression for many had ended abruptly and with little explanation beyond financial challenges.
A couple of weeks later, the Library Vintage is full of concerned artists wanting to know where things are going next. Catie Riley, a creative who works at the Library, led the conversation. She said she felt like the discussion was necessary after the news on INTERFORM broke. After prompting the group with the question, “What does a strong fashion community look like?”—and a bit of nervous silence—she started with her own suggestion, the potential for smaller shows.
"Little pocket shows, and just all support each other," Riley said. "If you're going to do a show, we're going to go to yours and we're going to support it. We're going to help you do the marketing for it, if you need a team, like that sort of thing. Rather than, I think, a big grievance with a lot of the things that were happening before was just this one big thing, and I don't think that that can work. I don't think that can be fruitful."
After that, the floodgates broke. Designer Aubrey Castello spoke first, saying Riley just shared exactly what they’ve been thinking. They had worked with Northwest Arkansas Fashion Week before and said its structure wasn’t always ideal for a designer.
"There's less creative control over the runway and the environment of the runway," Castello said. "To me, I feel that it sort of homogenizes everything and loses the ability to make each show an individual vision. So, like you are saying, to have several smaller things also allows a little bit more freedom for different types of designers and makers. You know, some people have a brand, and they are getting things manufactured in small to large batches. Some people are doing made to measure one off. Some people are doing one off, up-cycled things. And not all of these sort of modes of operation necessarily lend themselves to the get a 10-piece collection by this deadline, and we'll tell you who the model is like once you're halfway into making it. So I think, I think not having everything stuck together in one big event allows more flexibility for different approaches."
Another attendee and designer named Carena Hasara responded to that, asking what designers with limitations are meant to do with the closing of INTERFORM and other community resources— both material and educational.
"What does it mean to have centralized classroom space?" she said. "Is it stronger or more more desired to have a centralized resource for things like fabric notions, our own, like crafting thrift store. Is that like a thing that the community would want? Or is it more beneficial to have small pockets of those, just like we're thinking about these small pockets of displaying the creativity? Because on my end, I'm thinking very much like artists can't not make. They're going to find a way so what needs to happen so that they can?"
Braxon Carney arrived late to the forum but spoke as soon as there was a break in the conversation. He said he used to work for INTERFORM until it closed. He started as a model but soon garnered a passion for design, and the organization gave him several opportunities to flourish. He eventually became an instructor. He explained that INTERFORM’s funding mostly came from grant opportunities.
"Normally when INTERFORM would go look up what grants we can apply for, like they would put in, oh, we are an art organization," Carney said. "We do fashion, we do community, we have refugee students, refugee workers, all of those things you can put in. And normally you would get pages of grants that you can apply for. There's nothing like truly, there is nothing. And so there was a rush to try to find funding, and it was just too late. There was a very large overhead with staff. Fashion Week cost as much as they raised, so there was just a lot of stuff that led to its downfall. But I think this is the opportunity for some of the INTERFORM staff to lead and do their own thing."
So, there is a void to be filled with the end of INTERFORM, whether that be through ‘DIY’ efforts and community support or through another fashion week. You might have heard of Bentonville Fashion Week, which is being led by designer Rulli Torres. A familiar name in the local fashion industry and a previous instructor at INTERFORM, Torres recently led his own fashion show in Dallas and has returned to the region to attempt to bring fashion week back.
"I feel like I was kind of preparing myself, you know, getting all this experience," Torres said. "And when INTERFORM announced that they were going to cancel their their shows I thought, what perfect timing. Everybody was obviously devastated, and me as a designer, I always want to include my colleagues and all the talented designers, students, emerging students, professionals and boutiques, which, that's pretty much what I had been doing all this time. And so, you know, it just clicked. You know, basically I don't have a job now. So what better thing to do than just build something that I absolutely love and am passionate about?
"I went and I started, and everybody has been really supportive. I reached out to my former students, and they're on board. They're they're more than happy to, you know, help me out with what I need right now, we have probably close to 30 applications from designers, local designers, already, so it's just like it kind of blew up, you know. There was an opportunity, so I immediately jumped on it, and we had a great casting call as well. The team that we organized knocked it out of the ballpark. Everybody was really organized, and they did a really awesome job. So, I'm really happy how everything is going so far."
The profits of Bentonville Fashion Week will go toward supporting One Community, a nonprofit mental health organization in Springdale that Torres has a close connection with.
"This goes back to one of my high school instructors," Torres said. "She runs that nonprofit and we had been talking about mental health for a while, and I thought, you know, since I work with various causes, what a great way to do a fundraising event, because in our community, it's very taboo, and nobody really like talks about mental health. And so even when we did the casting calls, some of the models already knew that it was going to be a mental health awareness, and they were coming up to me and everybody else saying they were very thankful. And that's really rewarding to see, it's not just going to help a certain ethnicity or audience or whatnot, but it's open, like it's something that affects like everybody in general."
In response to the Fashion Forum at the Library Vintage and the importance of community in fashion, Torres said he hopes to become a bridge for other creatives from our region.
"I tend to just kind of stay in my man cave, but now that you know how this pretty much that I'm producing this, I have to get out more, for sure," Torres said. "I wanted to build something that, you know, the area is growing so much, and so I wanted to build a platform to where everybody as designers can grow as well. Like, we can all grow together. Everybody has different aesthetics. Everybody has their own following and like, for example, if you design something, you know, I I've bought stuff from other designers that I absolutely love. So, I think that there is plenty of room for everybody to grow together as a community."
Robin Wallis Atkinson, previous CEO of INTERFORM, spoke with KUAF mostly off the record. However, she said she is enthusiastically supporting new efforts to create community in fashion here, whatever it will look like, in the wake of the end of INTERFORM. She specifically commends Rulli Torres with Bentonville Fashion Week and Meg Carp with The Library Vintage.
Bentonville Fashion Week will be taking place at the Thaden School June 6-8, you can find more information on their Instagram.
