7 minute read
FASHION
VOTE OF CONFIDENCE
Meet five independent designers leaving their mark on the fashion landscape while staying true to their roots.
By Shyam Patel
What makes an emerging designer noteworthy? The ability to break through social media and retail clutter with decisiveness and clarity is a good start. Too often, heavily PR’d fashion speak and gimmicky marketing rise above those with a real point of view.
Fortunately, a cohort of spirited up-and-comers are drowning out the noise and cementing their place in an industry in need of change— and good taste. With community, curiosity, identity, and unwavering convictions at the forefront of their practices, these five designers are challenging convention without losing sight of what’s important— being true to oneself.
KINGSLEY GBADEGESIN
Nightlife and activism go hand in hand for queer communities. For first-generation Nigerian-American designer Kingsley Gbadegesin, the vibrant crossover of celebration, protest, and community organizing gave way to a distinct design perspective. The 29-year-old’s label, K.NGSLEY, launched in late 2020 with a collection of seductive tank tops dubbed Collection 0: BQ Essentials (BQ as in “butch queen,” for those wondering). Striking a balance between sensuality and strength, the much-coveted capsule was inspired by a tank top the New York–based designer skillfully cut up for a night out. Since then, he’s launched a ready-to-wear line complete with playful jewelry that takes the shape of PrEP pills and a refined version of combat boots that teeters between fashion and fetish. Defined by unconventional cutouts, sensible »
Launched online during the pandemic, designer Kingsley Gbadegesin’s K.NGSLEY label presented its first live runway show in New York this year. INSET: Designer Kingsley Gbadegesin.
Conner Ives’ Autumn/Winter 2022 collection, Hudson River School, taps into Y2K fashion nostalgia. INSET: Designer Conner Ives.
PHIL ENGELHARDT; COURTESY RENAISSANCE RENAISSANCE Cynthia Merhej’s label, Renaissance Renaissance, is a celebration of women-led couture. A look from the Fall/Winter 2022 La Douceur collection effuses bold femininity. INSET: Designer Cynthia Merhej.
yet elevated materials, and the restructuring of familiar silhouettes, K.NGSLEY is about more than party clothes or cheeky accessories. With an aesthetic rooted in the Ballroom Scene (an African-American and Latinx underground LGBTQ+ subculture that originated in New York during the 1990s) and the Black Lives Matter movement, Gbadegesin has captured the world around him while advocating for Black, queer, femme, and trans people to reclaim and redefine their bodies. Although stockists including Moda Operandi and Nordstrom— and celebrities like Lil Nas X, Jack Harlow, and Issa Rae—have enhanced the brand’s visibility, community remains at the heart of Gbadegesin’s work. It’s partly why there’s no “I” in K.NGSLEY; as Gbadegesin puts it, “it’s for the girls.”
CYNTHIA MERHEJ The female couturier is a rarity. While the maisons of Paris have always depended on the petite mains and vendeuses, male designers have by and large directed the vision. Across the Mediterranean, Cynthia Merhej had a different experience growing up in the Beirut atelier of her mother, Laura. An unpretentious environment where quality was paramount, the studio was a place where women of all shapes, sizes, and socioeconomic backgrounds came to feel seen. Now, following in the footsteps of her great-grandmother (also a designer) and mother, Merhej continues the legacy of women-led couture with her label, Renaissance Renaissance. Couture production and design development happens at a new Beirut atelier with the help of her mother and a seamstress, Nona, while the ready-to-wear line is produced at a small, ethically run factory in Italy. The label is all about duality. Structured tailoring meets frothy ruched tulle, cinched waists are flanked by ballooning sleeves, and decadence is tempered by pragmatism. It all reflects the push and pull between Merhej’s penchant for experimentation and the traditional techniques she learned from her mother. A former illustrator, Merhej finds purpose in creating garments that stand the test of time while reducing waste by using offcuts and deadstock materials for her couture pieces. Although her couture looks to the future, it’s also guided by her familial legacy. To this day,
Laura’s former clients return to seek her guidance on reworking previous designs for life’s next chapter. And it’s that same emotional connection and know-how that Merhej is bringing to a new generation of clients.
LU CHEN
To most of the fashion industry, time is best spent feeding a manic production cycle in hopes of rapid growth. In contrast, Parsons graduate Lu Chen carefully considers the passage of time and its relationship to the body. Last fall, the New York–based designer launched her namesake collection with a caveat: None of its garments were for sale. Instead, Chen’s conceptual creations served as blueprints for her ready-to-wear line. Rooted in meticulous craftsmanship and fueled by the courage to dream, her design practice recognizes the instability that comes with change, examines the contrast between physical experience and mental perception, and questions designers’ inclination to let the shape of the body lead. The resulting silhouettes are not easily digestible. Chens are concepts one must chew on: de-and-reconstructed suiting, outerwear enveloped in overwhelming layers of chiffon, a teardrop evening gown that refuses to conform to one’s legs, and unfinished dresses still attached to a bolt of fabric. There’s a palpable tension between tailoring and draping, and a bias for muddied identities over clean-cut archetypes. Within a year of launching Lùchen, this cerebral designer has quickly built a strong case for taking on big ideas.
CONNER IVES
The term “Americana” is chock-full of meaning. Although it’s a deep well of inspiration, the descriptor is interpreted time and again with themes as literal as the Wild West. For New York–born, London-based designer Conner Ives, Americana is layered and almost transhistorical. The Central Saint Martins alum harmonizes inspiration from art movements, including the mid-19th-century Hudson River School, with references to fashion films and shows like Unzipped and America’s Next Top Model. These threads are skillfully woven into his megawatt collections alongside childhood memories and allusions to female figures he grew up admiring, creating a new image of Americana— entirely personal and unbound by time. Fueled by the desire to produce more responsible clothes, the 26-year-old works primarily with deadstock fabrics and vintage garments. While tangible nostalgia that gives new life to landfill-bound materials could easily become self-serious, Ives is making sure it’s anything but. His exuberant sense of color, love of slinky silhouettes, and fearless approach to prints and off-kilter cuts are pure joy. »
The GRAY Awards Party? I’m in.
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It’s what earned him Rihanna’s attention (and a stint at her fashion brand, Fenty), in 2017 when he dressed Adwoa Aboah for the Met Gala. A finalist for the 2021 LVMH Prize, Ives has picked up stockists including Matches Fashion and Net-a-Porter. Ultimately, his clothes are desirable because of his genuine approach. He’s unafraid to show his passion and stand up for what he believes in—be it sustainability or archetypes from Y2K reality TV.
RACHEL SCOTT
In Plato’s Symposium, Socrates is enlightened on the doctrine of Eros by the priestess Diotima. In 2021, Jamaican-born, New York–based designer Rachel Scott launched her ready-to-wear label and named it after the Mantineian seer who put spiritual and corporeal procreation on equal footing. As the VP of design at the coveted New York label Rachel Comey for over seven years, Scott knows a thing or two about rousing sartorial desire. At Diotima, it begins with the levity of handcrafted Jamaican crochet and the principles of traditional European tailoring. Shimmer and sensuality informed by dance-hall culture come up against demure, long-line silhouettes. Scott’s bold use of color complements flashes of skin and palette-cleansing shades of white. Although the collections are deeply striking, Diotima does more than entice the senses— it’s a nexus among the intellectual, aesthetic, and physical. A former student of French and art at New York’s Colgate University, Scott closely analyzes the complexities of race, gender, and labor in her work. Her support of craftswomen in Jamaica and New York City’s garment industry coalesces with statements on sexuality, propriety, and attraction. Through Diotima, Scott is dreaming up new ways to wear, share, and think about fashion. h
A look from Diotima’s Pre-Spring 2023 collection, Batty Jaw. INSET: Diotima founder and designer Rachel Scott.
If I weren’t at the GRAY Awards Party on Dec. 5th...
Well, I just couldn’t imagine that life.
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