Clothing

JW Anderson

Jonathan Anderson, a Northern Irish designer who trained at London College of Fashion and worked as a visual merchandiser at Prada, founded JW Anderson in London in 2008. The label made its name on a deliberate blur between menswear and womenswear silhouettes, an idea Anderson later called a shared wardrobe, and it built a cult following well before he was named creative director of Loewe in 2013.

Majestic Filatures: The Paris Label Built on the Plain T-Shirt

Roland Chelly, the son of a tailor, launched Majestic Filatures out of Paris in 1989 with a fairly narrow, almost stubborn idea: take the plain T-shirt and give it the attention usually reserved for tailoring. The house built its own yarns rather than buying stock fabric, folding cashmere, silk, linen and wool into what started as a cotton-only proposition, and it still manufactures exclusively in France and Europe outside of Mongolian cashmere.

Sea New York: Dresses, Tops and Swim by Monahan and Paolini

Sean Monahan and Monica Paolini, childhood friends from Newburgh, New York, founded Sea in New York City in 2007, running the label out of a converted Canal Street factory that doubled as their apartment before it was ever a real office. Paolini brought design-director experience from Betsey Johnson and Jill Stuart, and that push-pull between her vintage-leaning eye and Monahan's cleaner, more modern instincts is still the label's defining dynamic.

Negative

Lauren Schwab and Marissa Vosper met as freshmen at the University of Pennsylvania with zero fashion or manufacturing background, then spent roughly four years researching the intimates industry, including classes at FIT, before self-funding Negative Underwear's 2014 launch. The founding idea was blunt: strip lingerie of the lace and embellishment that dominated the category and sell it as clean, minimal basics instead, a thesis that has since stretched into sleepwear, loungewear and now ready-to-wear.

Zeynep Arçay Dresses: Silk Midis and Maxis From Istanbul

Zeynep Arçay left a nearly two-decade career as a technology executive in Istanbul to launch her namesake label, named after her grandmother, in the early 2010s. She built the brand around paper-thin leather sourced from Leather Working Group-certified tanneries, engineered to move like fabric rather than sit stiff the way leather usually does.

Curatoria

Astrid Muñoz, a former model turned photographer, built Curatoria in Argentina in 2019 after years spent traveling the country documenting artisan communities and disappearing craft techniques. The label runs on that groundwork: instead of treating heritage textile and leatherwork skills as decoration, it structures whole collections around them, crediting the makers as collaborators rather than suppliers.

Pucci Dresses: Prints, Swim and Sunglasses From the House

Pucci dresses come from the house Emilio Pucci, a Florentine aristocrat, founded in 1947 after a photograph of his ski outfit ran in Harper's Bazaar. I go through the dresses, shirting, swim and sunglasses.

Magda Butrym Dresses: Rosette Midis, Blazers and Shoes

Magda Butrym, born in Zabrze, Poland, worked for years as a stylist and ran a short-lived earlier label, Portofino, before launching her eponymous house in Warsaw in 2014. The label built its identity by working directly with Polish artisans, turning regional hand-knitted lace and hand-plaited leatherwork into signatures rather than trims.

Flore Flore

Flòrian van Zuilen launched Flore Flore out of Amsterdam in the summer of 2021, after years working in fashion roles that took her from New York to Copenhagen. The label exists to solve one specific problem, the cotton basic that actually fits, and its team reportedly ran more than eighty fittings over about eight months just to finalize the proportions of its original T-shirt styles.

Zimmermann: The Sydney Label Two Sisters Started in 1991

Sisters Nicky and Simone Zimmermann founded their namesake label in Sydney in 1991, after Nicky began sewing garments in her parents' garage and selling them at Paddington Markets. The brand's breakthrough came when it put swimwear on the same runway as ready-to-wear at the inaugural Australian Fashion Week in 1996, a pairing that was unusual at the time and helped it build an international following.

EB Denim

Elena Bonvicini started EB Denim around 2015 while still in high school in Newport Beach, California, cutting up vintage Levi's 501s into shorts and selling them out of her school locker room. The brand grew through a sorority trunk show at USC and a pandemic-era pivot into its own designs, still made in Los Angeles and still rooted in that reworked-vintage-denim logic.

Silvia Tcherassi: From Barranquilla Interior Designer to Dresses

Silvia Tcherassi trained as an interior designer in Barranquilla, Colombia, before a T-shirt she made for herself caught a shopkeeper's eye. I go through her dresses, tops, skirts and trousers.

ROAME Pascal Strapless Maxi Dress and the Melbourne Label

The ROAME Pascal Strapless Maxi Dress sits with dresses, tops, trousers and skirts from the Melbourne label founded by Hollie Sweet. I go through the dresses first, then the shirting, trousers and skirts.

Max Mara

Achille Maramotti, a lawyer by training from a family of tailors, founded the house in Reggio Emilia, Italy, in 1951, first as Confezioni Maramotti, renaming it Max Mara when it moved headquarters in 1957. His idea was to bring American industrial manufacturing into European tailoring, turning the coat, a masculine wardrobe staple, into a defining piece for women, a project that produced the 101801 camel coat designer Anne-Marie Beretta created for the house in 1981.

TWP Clothing: Shirting From Trish Wescoat Pound

Trish Wescoat Pound, raised in Oklahoma and seasoned by earlier stints at Theory and Michael Kors and by building her first label, Haute Hippie, into a business she later sold in 2015, founded TWP in 2021 after selling hand-tailored shirts to friends at trunk shows caught the attention of former boss and Theory co-founder Andrew Rosen, who became her investor. The label reimagines men's shirting for women, down to cuff construction and button placement, and has since expanded into denim, tailoring and accessories, all made within a few blocks of its SoHo base.

De La Vali Dresses: Maxi Styles From Two Friends Raised on Ibiza

De La Vali dresses are maxi styles by Jana Sascha and Laura Castro, friends raised on Ibiza who started the label in 2017. I sorted the dresses by cut, from fishtail to flared sleeve.

Onia Beach Dresses and Swim: From Two Swim Shorts to Resort

Carl Cunow and Nathan Romano, two native New Yorkers who met in high school, launched Onia in 2009 with just two styles of men's swim shorts made in New York. Barneys discovered the brand early, and Onia grew from a two-man swim operation into men's and women's resort wear built around fit and fabrication rather than the loudest print in the room

By Malene Birger

Malene Birger launched her namesake house in Copenhagen in 2003, a year after leaving Day Birger et Mikkelsen, the label she had co-founded in 1997 and helped shape as creative director. The point of departure was Scandinavian minimalism with a bohemian ease baked in, tailoring and knitwear built from long-lasting fabrics rather than trend-of-the-moment fabric

Khaite Shoes, Bags and Accessories: Leather Pumps and Sandals

Catherine Holstein launched Khaite in New York in 2016 with backing from Adam Pritzker's Assembled Brands, after a first eponymous label she started as a Parsons student closed in the 2008 financial crisis and a five-year run designing for Gap, Vera Wang and The Elder Statesman taught her the parts of the business she'd missed the first time. The label opened on denim and cashmere knitwear before adding runway shows in 2019 and an in-house bags and footwear line the same season, and Holstein still designs under a name modeled on the Greek word for long, flowing hair.

Olive Green and Chocolate Brown Outfits to Try This Fall

Olive green and chocolate brown are the earthiest pairing in fall dressing, two colors that look like a walk in the woods. These four looks pair an olive cashmere sweater with brown corduroy trousers, a brown cardigan with an olive ribbed skirt, and an olive blouson over a brown polo sweater. Start with one piece of each and build from there.

Good Designer Jackets: Leather, Wool, Suede and Cropped Coats

Good designer jackets are the ones that make the rest of the wardrobe simpler, in leather, wool, suede and cropped cuts. My rule is to buy the coat for the silhouette it makes over clothes, not for the material listed.

Bike Shorts Versus Leggings

Bike shorts versus leggings comes down to coverage and movement, with capris in between. I compare all three and how to build a studio outfit from the base up.

Designer Maxi Dresses: Longline, Lace, Draped and Strapless Picks

The best designer maxi dresses do one thing decisively: they create a silhouette before you have added a single accessory. That can mean a longline cut, a bare shoulder, lace, or draping that turns the fabric into the event. I am less interested in whether a dress is technically

Camel and Burgundy Outfits to Try This Fall

A camel and burgundy outfit works because the two colors share the same warmth. I built looks around a camel cardigan with burgundy trousers, a burgundy sweater with a camel skirt and a camel trench over burgundy.