Cleveland to Host a Fashion Week for the First Time Since 2017

In the middle of July this year, local events coordinator Chrissy Cavotta teamed up with Mike Anthony, the co-founder of the Sweetest Day Foundation, to spearhead what may have been the most haute event ever held under the City Hall Rotunda: a three-hour Cleveland take on the Met Gala.

The energy, Cavotta recalled recently, was surprising. They had hired just half of the 150 models that applied. About 30 designers signed up to display new lines. “We only had time for eight,” Cavotta said.

“We could’ve had 185 models,” Anthony added. “We had so many people sign up for our model casting call that it was through the roof.”

That love of fashion, which brought Browns tight end David Njoku to the runway, led Anthony and Cavotta to announce last week what they see as the next logical step: a week-long fashion event in Cleveland next July.

Planned to be held July 7-13, CLEFW, as Anthony announced it at Nuevo on Friday, will be the city’s first weeklong dedication to fashion since Fashion Week Cleveland (“no affiliation,” Anthony said) ended its 15-year run in 2017.

The scene’s been relatively siloed and scattered since. Industry authorities like Yasin Cuevas, Aimon Ali and Valerie Mayan have held standalone runway shows in Midtown and Downtown, like Miss Latina and Fashion Talks, but nothing at the scale Anthony said he’d like to pull off.

To do so, he hired Cavotta, who’s earned her name as a leader with shows in the Warehouse District in the past year. Cavotta said her aim is to use next July as an opportunity to bring Cleveland back into the ranks of at least 42 other cities with fashion weeks in North America.

“You don’t really think of Ohio as a fashion destination,” she told Scene. “You think L.A., New York, even Chicago. But Cleveland has a lot of talent with models and designers that it’s kind of untapped.”

And “I think that it’s just growing exponentially,” she added.

Live model calls will start in New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Cleveland sometime in January, Cavotta said.

City Hall is the only venue booked so far for CLEFW, a name Anthony said he’s using to avoid a trademark dispute. He has plans for a swimwear show, possibly at Edgewater or Voinovich Park, along with a “high-fashion brunch” and a music-themed show at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. He’s even considering a “CLE Fly” walk at a hangar at Burke, with a focus on streetwear or athleisure.

Donald Shingler, a local dentist who founded Fashion Week Cleveland in 2002, and who was at the event on Friday, told Scene that he will not be involved with CLEFW, and was not asked to be on the advisory board Anthony is currently forming.

Though Shingler’s website advertises a Fashion Week Cleveland in 2026, he did not deny the date listed was a glitch. Or if he’d seek to reboot Fashion Week Cleveland in the next few years.

“It’s a possibility. Maybe,” he said in a phone call. “I just haven’t decided.”

Which might be a bit awkward in Anthony’s mind. “Well, it would not make a whole lot of sense to have two Fashion Weeks,” he said.

CLEFW, after just having been announced, is still in the process of gathering sponsors.

“We’re hoping it’s going to bring people in the city, not only from Ohio,” she said, “but from the surrounding cities in the Midwest that want to come and check it out.”

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