The CFDA and Ralph Lauren are incentivizing U.S. fashion manufacturing with two grants.
The CFDA and Ralph Lauren have launched two grant programs aimed at strengthening U.S. fashion manufacturing through direct support for designers and factories. The CFDA x NY Forward Grant Fund will offer matching grants to New York City-based manufacturers and designers producing in-house, while the U.S. Fashion Manufacturing Fund will expand that support nationwide from 2027 to 2029. Backed by Ralph Lauren as founding partner, the national program will fund investments in equipment, technology, and workforce training, covering up to 80 percent of project costs. Together, the initiatives build on the CFDA’s long-running manufacturing efforts and seek to make domestic production more viable across key apparel regions.
Flanders seeks to dismantle Belgium’s oldest contemporary art museum.
Flanders has moved to dismantle Antwerp’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgium’s oldest contemporary art museum, citing austerity measures tied to the region’s widening budget deficit. The proposal cancels a planned $93.5 million building and calls for transferring the museum’s 8,000-work collection to Ghent, a shift that would effectively remove Antwerp’s museum status. Artists including Luc Tuymans and Anish Kapoor have publicly condemned the plan, warning that uprooting the collection would damage both the works and the cultural infrastructure built around the institution. Belgium’s financial inspectorate has also raised doubts about the plan’s cost savings, noting likely new expenses related to storage, loans, and programming.
The Diriyah Biennale Foundation has announced the artists exhibiting in its third edition.
The Diriyah Biennale Foundation has announced the more than 65 artists participating in the third Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, which opens January 30 in the JAX District near Riyadh. Titled “In Interludes and Transitions,” the exhibition brings together historic figures such as Pacita Abad and Etel Adnan alongside mid-career and emerging artists, with more than 20 new commissions. Artistic directors Nora Razian and Sabih Ahmed frame the edition around how local histories and forms of knowledge move, shift, and endure over time. The lineup reflects a broad geographic reach, with strong representation from the Middle East alongside artists from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas.
For wildfire resilience, two initiatives are reviving the Case Study Houses program.
Two initiatives in Los Angeles—Case Study: Adapt and Case Study 2.0—have revived the Case Study Houses model to address rebuilding after recent wildfires with a focus on fire-resilient housing. Launched independently, the programs pair homeowners with architects to develop designs that exceed current fire codes while streamlining permitting and construction in fire-damaged neighborhoods such as Pacific Palisades and Altadena. Case Study: Adapt plans a limited set of architect-led projects, while Case Study 2.0 offers a broader catalog of designs intended to balance architectural quality with cost control. Both efforts position resiliency, replication, and noncombustible materials as central strategies for post-fire recovery.
Meta’s departing chief A.I. scientist alleges the company “fudged” benchmark testing of Llama-4.
Yann LeCun, Meta’s departing chief A.I. scientist, said the company manipulated Llama-4 benchmark results by testing different model variants across evaluations to boost performance scores. He told the Financial Times that this approach departed from standard practice and fueled skepticism after outside researchers failed to reproduce Meta’s claims using public versions of the models. The discrepancies intensified internal concern about Llama’s progress and contributed to leadership frustration, including at the CEO level. LeCun’s comments come as Meta restructures its A.I. operations and as he prepares to leave the company to pursue research outside large language models.
Today’s attractive distractions:
Hermès has commissioned rising French artist Lina Merad for its nautical website update.
Geometric carpentry runs throughout this Abu Dhabi horseback riding school.
In 2026, the train travel renaissance shows no signs of slowing down.
They say logomania is back, but did it ever really go away?
