Exclusive: Alithea Castillo Directs The Trending Fashion Reels for the CFDA Fashion Awards

For the past few years, Alithea Castillo has brought designers and celebrities off the red carpet to star in the CFDA Fashion Awards’ exclusive film.

In 2025, it takes far more than a paparazzi shot to command a newsstand, unless you are Kate Middleton or Pope Leo XIV. Today, the goal is to break the internet using any tool at your disposal. Reels are the new currency of influence, CapCut-ing moments with atmosphere and aura in the digital arena of Vanity Fair. Most climax in just sixty seconds, the minimum required for monetization on TikTok, offering compressed content rather than lasting art.

But the challenge of creating a world within the clock shouldn’t skimp creativity, and that’s the beauty of what Alithea Castillo has built each year for the Council of Fashion Designers of America, a job she entered almost by Darwinism. “I started working with them last 2019 and I started doing social strategy at first,” she says. Her path began at IMG. “I did New York Fashion Week… and somebody from that team went to CFDA and basically it trickled down because I started freelancing.”

When she and her partner Kim Tin launched Of Becoming Us, she simply asked if they wanted a video. “We didn’t do anything crazy. It was just a cam-op, my partner, and a small light, and just people going through the hallway.” That happened to be the year Zendaya received the Fashion Icon Award, and their video unexpectedly caught fire on socials. “It kind of propelled us into doing more work like that,” she says. Glam videos soon evolved into something more magical, reflecting Castillo’s own world of pure imagination.

When the CFDA Fashion Awards switched venues to the American Museum of Natural History, the same setting as Ben Stiller’s Night at the Museum trilogy and home to exhibits that inspired generations of fashion designers, Castillo suggested expanding the format. “I asked them, ‘Would you guys be down to do something crazier or something different? Not just the glam video.’” They agreed. “I was still figuring out who I was as a director and what I wanted to do,” she says. “For me, I do like narrative more than anything. They told me, ‘Here is the platform, let us know what you want to do.’”

In three years, she built a full filmmaking operation of her own design, with her films being fully shot in the narrow window before supper is served. “This entire film was filmed within two hours,” she says, leading a crew that rivals any independent film production. “I think we had around 35 people on our team, which is insane when we started with just eight or seven two years ago.”

Castillo orchestrates the project with blockbuster-level coordination. “I have an insane spreadsheet,” she admits. Beginning with concepts, “maybe three or four,” and pitching them to the CFDA and casting talent she may not even know will show up. “I would only get talent lists like a week before… it keeps changing until the day of.” She assigns first choices, second tiers, third tiers, and prepares for pivots. “There are things that I did write for a specific person,” she says.

This year, her opening scene for Teyana Taylor and closing scene for A$AP Rocky almost didn’t happen. “Teyana was hosting… she was like, ‘I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to come,’” she recalls. By the finale, “If Rocky didn’t arrive… stars would not come to you anymore.” He showed up near 9PM. “We only had Rocky for maybe less than a minute,” she says. “Thank God he was there… if he had not been in the scene, I had no idea how I was going to end the film.”

The concept for the film began as a dinner invitation, inspired by Thom Browne’s chicken pot pie, then as a narrative about winners, and finally as something entirely different. “What if it’s not a dinner invitation? What if it’s a gazette?” She took stimulus from Bridgerton’s Lady Whistledown, a character inspired by the real-life Mrs. Crackenthorpe and The Female Tatler. In Catillo’s story, the fictional paper, The Society of Dress, is penned anonymously by Teyana’s character. “She talks about who might win, who’s getting all these honors… I actually have an actual paper, and I wrote out the exact thing.”

The courier structure allowed Castillo to bring in more talent, often in jocular vignettes. “I wanted it a little more comedic,” she says. “Maybe this person is making popcorn. Maybe someone has a giant messy balloon for no reason… Stephan Diggs plays foosball by himself.” She didn’t want the museum to take center stage. “It’s a beautiful backdrop, but I didn’t want it to be about the museum.” Instead, her instinct for humor surfaced. “That is kind of what I like doing… in narratives, there is always a little comedic interjection.”

Directing talent under pressure is where Castillo shines. “I don’t have an hour with them… maybe only 10 minutes, 20 minutes… if I’m lucky, 30.” Her approach is simple: trust and ease. “Humanising them… not making them feel like I’m fangirling,” she says. “It’s professional, but I want you to feel very… at ease.” She often finds herself buoyed by familiarity. “It’s so warming when talents remember you.” Teyana, whom she had filmed at the Met Gala, greeted her with “How are you, sis?” Ciara “totally just remembered us and was like, okay, tell me what you want to do.” These moments matter. “There’s not a lot of us, somebody who’s a queer female,” she says. “It’s kind of cool to be remembered.”

Her creative partnership with Kim turns work into leisure. “Kim and I co-direct a lot of things, but we do have our strengths,” she says. “I’m more creative direction… I create all the narratives. Kim is very technical. I know nothing about cameras.” On set, Kim becomes the DP. “If I can work with Kim my entire life doing film… I would,” she says with a grin. “I’m very spoiled… when I need a shot, they just know how to film it.” Their collaboration is both intrinsic and structural. “When a scene is not doing well… Kim would be the one to problem solve… I just need somebody who’s grounding me a lot.” At the awards, her favorite part of the night was simple: “My highlight was doing this all with Kim.”

Against the turmoil, Castillo finds purpose and joy in the people beside her, with the collective spirit that makes the impossible possible. “I think like I’m gonna go back to how I had this entire crew, who we would not be able to do it without,” she says. “None of the stars would have come to us if we didn’t have these people around us.”