Five Caribbean American Designers Who Owned MEFeater's Galentine's Runway 2026

On February 13, 2026, New York Fashion Week (NYFW) had one of its most culturally intentional nights of the season, and it did not happen at a legacy house or a corporate-backed presentation. It happened at The Glasshouse in Hell's Kitchen, where MEFeater Magazine hosted its 5th Annual Galentine's Runway Show, and where Caribbean excellence walked through the door and owned every inch of the room.

MEFeater, the multimedia brand founded by Gabrielle Amani at just 17 years old, has spent five years building Galentine's into something the fashion industry doesn't often see: a show that exclusively features women designers, celebrates female friendship and collaboration, and treats the runway as cultural narrative rather than commercial spectacle. This year's theme was deeply personal, drawn from Caribbean and Panamanian culture in tribute to Gabrielle's own heritage. The result was a night where the fashion, the music, and the community told one unified story.

Three designers took the runway. Two more shaped every look from the ground up, through jewelry and footwear that turned styling into storytelling. And a live performances by Macka Diamond and Cyn Santana, fused music and fashion into a single heartbeat. Together, they delivered something the fashion world needs far more of: a reminder that Caribbean creativity is a legacy.

BCD Planet — Belania Daley

Belania Daley

Belania Daley has never been quiet about her ambitions, and MEFeater's Galentine's Runway 2026 gave the industry the full weight of what she has been building. Her brand, BCD Planet, arrived with a collection that felt like a declaration: contemporary silhouettes infused with the dual cultural pulse of her Jamaican and Cuban heritage, a sophisticated streetwear language she has been refining for over fifteen years.

On the Glasshouse runway, that vision translated into graphic polish, black-and-white polka dots punctuated with mustard accents that felt both precise and alive. A sleeveless A-line mini dress with a ruffled hemline moved fluidly with each step, while a tailored midi skirt paired with a corset top and sheer puff sleeves brought sculptural drama to the stage.

Born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island, Daley grew up in the Jamaican dance hall scene, where movement, music, and personal style are inseparable, and spent fifteen years as a ballet dancer before channeling that discipline into fashion. She studied at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), graduating from their Technical Design program, and then did something most designers skip: she went corporate. A decade-plus of technical design experience at houses including Ralph Lauren, Betsey Johnson, Derek Lam, and Steve Madden gave her something many independent designers lack, the bone-deep knowledge of how garments actually work. "If the clothes don't fit well, nobody will buy it," she has said. Fit, at every level, is her foundation.

She brought BCD Planet to national audiences as a contestant on Project Runway Season 21, turning the pressure of the workroom into a showcase for her signature aesthetic: preppy tailoring colliding with streetwear energy, with cinematic influences drawn from the fashion-forward films of the 1950s through the 1980s. But it is her cultural roots, the movement of dancehall, the layered identity of Jamaican and Cuban heritage, that give her work its soul. At NYFW 2026, that soul was on full display. Each silhouette carried both precision and personality, the kind of garments that know exactly who they are and move through the world accordingly.

Daley has also become a voice for sustainability in fashion, championing recycled and natural fabrics and building a brand with purpose-driven functionality at its core. She has described her goal as creating garments that live in your wardrobe through all seasons, classic, chic, and durable, and becoming, in time, a fully zero-waste clothing company. BCD Planet is not just a fashion brand. It is a vision of what fashion can be when rooted in culture, craft, and conscience.

SEV Furtique — Abigail "Abby" Silverio

Abigail Silverio

There is a particular glamour that belongs to Abigail Silverio, and it is not borrowed from anyone. The founder of SEV Furtique, Abby grew up in Harlem as a first-generation Dominican American, watching women move through the streets of New York in luxury fur she could admire but not yet afford. Today, she designs those pieces herself, and she does it on her own terms.

SEV Furtique, her "fur boutique", is a made-to-order luxury fur label that has quietly built a devoted following across New York, Switzerland, Paris, and the wider United States. Abby taught herself the technical language of fur through a transformative trip to Europe with her family, where she was introduced to vendors, dyeing techniques, and the textures that would become the backbone of her design practice. She brings to each piece a jeweler's attention to detail, which were personally testing for shedding, color, and durability, because she knows that real luxury means making something that lasts.

At MEFeater's Galentine's Runway 2026, SEV Furtique represented Dominican heritage with a collection steeped in nostalgia and neighborhood glamour. Abby drew inspiration from 1990s Spanish telenovelas, those lush, operatic dramas that made every woman look like she was the center of the universe, and the particular voltage of Washington Heights style, where Dominican culture shaped one of New York's most vibrant fashion identities. The result was a runway presence that felt cinematic, intimate, and deeply personal. Within a show themed around Caribbean and Panamanian culture, SEV Furtique brought the Dominican chapter with full authority.

Abby is one of the few Latina women designing luxury fur in an industry long dominated by men, and she carries that distinction with both pride and purpose. She dreams of opening her own Furtique in New York, expanding to Paris, and landing on the shelves of Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus. Given the trajectory of SEV, those dreams are not distant. They are en route.

Tanya Marie Collection — Tanya Marie

Belania Daley

When Tanya Marie closed the runway at NYFW 2026, it was not simply a finale. It was a culmination. A Jamaican-born, Miami-raised designer whose career has spanned decades, celebrity clientele, and a fashion philosophy rooted in ancestral storytelling and couture reconstruction, Tanya Marie has always understood that clothing is not just something you wear, but something you carry.

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, and raised in Miami where she became a celebrated celebrity stylist and designer, Tanya Marie founded her collection in 2012. But her origin story begins much earlier, in the act of reimagining. Before she mastered the sewing machine, she was already modifying designer pieces that weren't selling, transforming Cavalli dresses and other high-fashion garments into something entirely new. The store owner never objected. Those pieces always sold. "You know like how we step into a space and just take over?" she once said with a laugh. "It's a Jamaican thing."

Her Galentine's Runway 2026 closing collection was deeply handcrafted, each garment constructed as an act of ancestral storytelling and couture reconstruction, a method she has made her signature. Beaded by hand, built from unique and often sourced fabrics, her pieces exist at the intersection of tribal design, opulent bohemian freedom, and the quiet authority of a woman who dresses by her own rules. She has dressed Jada Pinkett Smith, Timbaland's bridal party, Pitbull's leading ladies, members of the Real Housewives franchise, and Jamaica's First Lady Juliet Holness. But she will tell you that her most fulfilling clients are the professional women - doctors, lawyers, and leaders who simply want to feel exactly like who they are.

Grisé NYC & M.Marie — The Designers Who Complete the Look

Heritage and luxury, standing powerfully side by side.

A runway does not end at the clothing. It ends at the full picture...the accessories, the shoes, the details that make a look complete. At Galentine's NYFW 2026, that picture was finished by two Dominican-rooted creative forces who have spent years proving that jewelry and footwear are not afterthoughts, but architecture.

Georgina Ogirri — Grisé NYC 

Georgina Ogirri

Georgina Ogirri is the founder of Grisé NYC (pronounced gree-say), a jewelry and accessories brand she created in memory of her mother, Griselina, a woman who moved through the world with confidence and elegance, adorned in the bold vintage hoops, layered pearl chains, and statement rings that now live on in every piece Georgina designs.

A graduate of Parsons School of Design with a background in strategic design and brand management, Georgina brings both creative instinct and business precision to a brand that has appeared on global stages including Vogue and the 2025 Met Gala. Dominican and Nigerian, she builds from a dual cultural inheritance that informs the layered, intentional beauty of each collection, pieces that are, in her words, "for minimalists, maximalists, and everyone in between." At NYFW 2026, Grisé NYC brought that edge to the runway through intentional styling that made every look more complete, every statement more pointed, and every woman wearing the pieces unmistakably herself.

Markisha Marie — M.Marie

Markisha Marie

Markisha Marie, founder of M.Marie luxury footwear, has been building her brand the hard way since 2018, and there is no other way she would have it. A Bronx native with Dominican roots, Markisha spent nearly a decade searching for a manufacturer willing to take her seriously before connecting with an Italian factory that understood her vision: bold, glamorous, unapologetically extra shoes built for women who do not walk into rooms. They transform them. Her heels are designed from real-life inspiration, and she loves everythng about shoes that women shy away from. The Tulum heel born from a trip to Mexico, the Jamaica and St. Maarten styles drawn from Caribbean travels and manufactured in Italy to a standard of quality she personally refuses to compromise on. A self-taught designer who has navigated design theft, economic uncertainty, and an industry that has long undercounted Black women in luxury, Markisha has spoken plainly about what she is building: visibility, ownership, and open doors for every little girl who comes after her. At NYFW 2026, M.Marie's presence on the runway was styling, but it was also proof.

What happened at MEFeater's Galentine's Runway on February 13 was a movement that has been in motion for a long time - Caribbean women building, designing, creating, and refusing to make themselves smaller for rooms that weren't built for them. BCD Planet, SEV Furtique, Tanya Marie Collection, Grisé NYC, and M.Marie did not simply participate in Galentine's. On a night where MEFeater founder Gabrielle Amani chose to honor her Caribbean and Panamanian heritage as the show's living theme, these five women made that theme breathe. They elevated the show and the show gave them exactly the stage they deserved.

This is what Caribbean excellence looks like when it walks through the door.

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