Five designers who had never shown in New York before had their clothes walked down the steps of Brooklyn Borough Hall on Saturday — a building built for records offices and marriage licenses, not runway shows. The event, The People's Runway, is in its second year, co-run by Borough President Antonio Reynoso and Colm Dillane — the designer behind the label KidSuper, a 2009 graduate of Brooklyn Technical High School who now holds the title of Brooklyn's official Arts Ambassador. Reynoso and Dillane read hundreds of applications to choose this year's five: Kuai Li, Lamin Rey Jaiteh, Laurel Tiange Fang, Moses Aina, and Roderick Reyes, each given a $5,000 grant and direct mentorship rather than just a slot in the lineup.

The show closed with Wyclef Jean, who walked off the runway stage and brought out Lauryn Hill for an unannounced performance, thirty years to the season after the Fugees released The Score. More than a thousand people were already standing on Borough Hall's plaza for five designers most of them had never heard of. Nobody moved toward the exits once the reunion started, and nobody had moved toward them before it, either.