Who Builds the Next Dominican Fashion Designer?

Talent is not a pipeline by itself. A country can have gifted young designers and still lose them if there is no training, mentorship, production knowledge, business education or public stage.

The institutional story reaches back through Mercy Jácquez and CHAVÓN. INPOSDOM places the founding of Mercy Jácquez's Fashion school in 1980. CHAVÓN opened its School of Design in 1983 and today offers separate full-time tracks for Fashion Design and Fashion Marketing & Communications.

That separation is important. A Fashion sector needs more than people who sketch clothes. It needs pattern makers, production knowledge, merchandising, branding, journalism, public relations, product development and people who understand price and consumer behavior.

Emerge RD, launched in 2026 under Sócrates McKinney with IHG support, tries to connect training to the next stage. By August, the first edition had narrowed to six finalists: Georgie de Mata from Instituto Mercy Jácquez; Erick Lemos and Karla Ramírez from CHAVÓN; Heidy Feliz from ITSC; Leibrigui Urimare from CHAVÓN; and Yenny Vásquez from Santiago.

They were paired with established mentors including Giannina Azar, Leonel Lirio, Magaly Tiburcio, Carlos de Moya, José Jhan and Maylé Vásquez. EmergeRD 2026 has concluded. Heidy Feliz, a graduate of the Instituto Técnico Superior Comunitario (ITSC), received the Colección Emergente recognition for her collection ‘Latido Rural.’ The prize included a scholarship for a summer course at Istituto Marangoni in Milan.

The strongest part of Emerge RD is not competition drama. It is the visible map of the pipeline: technical school, design school, regional talent, established mentor, public presentation and potentially international exposure. That is the infrastructure a Fashion industry needs if the next generation is going to have more than individual hustle.