New York's Designers to Know

Every February, New York stops pretending it isn't a fashion city. For one week, the shows take over the big ones, the obvious ones, and the ones happening in black box theatres and boutique ateliers that most people never find. Those are the ones we go for. 

Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen: Birthing Circle 

Credits: Courtesy of Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen

The room was lit by candles. The palette was white and cream, linen, sheer, deadstock cut into shapes drawn from pre-industrial pregnancy corsets and maternity wear. At the end of the show, Whalen dunked herself in a bath. Birthing Circle was her second season on the CFDA calendar. The Brooklyn-based designer makes everything by hand from deadstock and antique fabrics. The silhouettes draw from medieval references, panniers, stomachers, underskirting  and something intimate and bodily. A white structured coat-dress; a loose cream gown, the model holding a tarnished silver tray, mid-ritual. 
"It's like I'm in a dark wood, walking a path only illuminated by a candle I'm holding." In a fashion week full of noise, she made something radically quiet. 

Meruert Tolegen: Gothic Restraint  

Credits: Courtesy of Meruert Tolegen

For FW26, Tolegen showed only 15 looks in her SoHo boutique at 39 Wooster Street, to a live violinist performing deconstructed Mozart and Bach. "I wanted each garment to be spotlit, and each piece to have its own moment." 
Slim silhouettes evolving into a sculpted tulip-shaped hip; satin corset dresses, wool blazers, shapely coats. An off-shoulder jacquard gown in silver-grey; a strapless white sculptural mini structured as architecture. Tolegen grew up between Almaty, Kazakhstan and California, the bows across her collections are a direct reference to Kazakh braiding tradition, her grandmother's craft quietly encoded. 

Diotima: Femme Cheval

 
Credits: Courtesy of Diotima

Rachel Scott showed twice at NYFW FW26: first her debut at Proenza Schouler, then Diotima four days later. Studios three blocks apart. 
Femme Cheval, named after Wifredo Lam's painting of a horse-headed woman, was a 34-look collaboration with Lam's estate. Three works interpreted in organza intarsia, made entirely by hand. "It's anti-imperialist. This is a political collection." A patchwork shearling gown in warm browns; a black crochet turtleneck with mustard fringe mohair skirt. Texture as language, politics as practice. 

Three shows. A candlelit room, a boutique-atelier, a political runway. Fashion made with full seriousness about what it costs to make honestly.