A 70-model fashion procession is headed for Bushwick this fall, with designer Amanda Mehl staging her latest spectacle not on a Manhattan runway but across the lawns of Maria Hernandez Park. Carnaval NYC, set for October 18, will combine live music, DJs, dancers, and performers with a carnival-style procession drawing on traditions from around the world. It's the newest chapter for an artist who has made a career out of pulling fashion shows out of traditional venues and dropping them into unexpected corners of the city.
According to Bushwick Daily, more than 70 models will take part in the outdoor event, which Mehl describes as an effort to transform a traditional fashion show into a public celebration. Dance and performance groups are also being organized to join the procession, per Mehl, folding Carnaval-inspired movement into the runway concept rather than keeping it as a backdrop. The event is billed as an outdoor fashion, music, and cultural celebration rather than a conventional runway show.
Mehl is the founder of AMEHL, a Bushwick-based fashion and arts project, and has built a reputation for staging shows in commercial and everyday spaces rather than traditional showrooms. Born in Buenos Aires, she studied visual arts in Tel Aviv before settling in Brooklyn and launching the label in 2016, according to Nylon. Her practice blends visual art, performance, and fashion design into a single ongoing project rather than treating each show as a standalone event.
A History of Runways in Unlikely Places
Mehl's site-specific instincts go back years. In February 2019, she staged a New York Fashion Week show inside Garber Hardware in the West Village, sending 55 models down the store's retail aisles while attendees sat on inverted plastic paint buckets, as reported by CBS New York. The 135-year-old hardware store reportedly provided its space free of charge to support local artistic expression.
That September, AMEHL presented its Spring 2020 collection, titled How to Keep Your Husband, inside a crowded apartment, distributing invitations in Tupperware containers and having models walk across decorated food tables, Nylon's account notes. AMEHL has also produced a back-to-school collection staged inside a school bus and an SS23 collection titled The Prophecy.
Mehl's world-building extends beyond the runway itself. She expanded AMEHL into a broader narrative art universe called Amehlica, which included video art broadcast on a Times Square billboard in 2022 and 2023 and a 2025 gallery exhibition at Picture Theory, per Whitehot Magazine. She also created a talk show with her mother, Beverly Mehl, part of the same satirical impulse that has shaped her runway concepts.
Why Maria Hernandez Park
The choice of venue carries its own weight. Maria Hernandez Park is a 6.87-acre public space bounded by Knickerbocker and Irving avenues and Suydam and Starr streets, renamed by the New York City Council in 1989 to honor a local community activist who was murdered after campaigning against neighborhood drug dealers, according to NYC Parks. Before her death, Hernandez had organized neighborhood block parties and cultural events to unite residents, making the park a fitting stage for another gathering built around performance and community.
The park underwent major capital renovations between 2003 and 2022 that added a public performance stage, an expanded central plaza, renovated sports courts, and upgraded recreational facilities, the same city agency notes. Those additions have turned it into the primary gathering hub for cultural events in Bushwick, giving Carnaval NYC infrastructure that earlier AMEHL shows, staged in hardware stores and apartments, never had.
Any outdoor gathering of this size comes with its own rulebook. NYC Parks requires a Special Event Permit for any public park gathering expecting 20 or more attendees, with applications due at least 21 days in advance and a nonrefundable $25 fee, per the agency's permitting guidelines. Those permits govern reservations, temporary structures, sound amplification, and site management, all relevant for a 70-model procession accompanied by live music and DJs.
Part of a Bigger Push for Public Fashion
Carnaval NYC arrives amid a broader shift toward staging fashion outside private Manhattan venues. Earlier this month, local officials hosted The People's Runway at Brooklyn Borough Hall, a program giving local Brooklyn designers a high-visibility platform outside the traditional fashion calendar, as Hoodline previously reported. Officials cited New York City's fashion industry, which generated $7.9 billion in total economic impact and supported more than 32,000 jobs in 2024, with citywide Fashion Week events contributing nearly $900 million annually, while advocating for expanded public fashion initiatives.
Bushwick has also seen a run of large outdoor cultural gatherings this year, including the Sounds That Move Festival along Scott Avenue this past spring. Carnaval NYC fits that same pattern of pulling crowds into shared public spaces rather than ticketed venues, with Mehl's park-based procession offering yet another test of how far a runway show can stretch beyond its traditional four walls.
