Clothing
Clothing
Fleur du Mal Dresses and Shoes
Jennifer Zuccarini launched Fleur du Mal in New York in 2012 after stints co-founding Kiki de Montparnasse and designing intimates at Victoria's Secret, taking the brand's name from Baudelaire's collection of poems. Her pitch was lingerie meant to be worn on an ordinary day rather than saved for an occasion, which is why the label expanded into ready-to-wear and swim without ever losing its underpinnings logic.
High Sport Knitwear
Alissa Zachary launched High Sport in the early 2020s in New York and Los Angeles after years of merchandising at The Row and consulting for Khaite, and the label opened with a single item, a cropped, pull-on kick-flare trouser made to look tailored while wearing like a legging. That one silhouette became an unlikely editor obsession and the brand has since built out a small range of Italian-made knitwear around the same logic.
Prabal Gurung Dresses: A Shopper's Guide
Prabal Gurung is the New York designer who carried Kathmandu and New Delhi into sculpted, vividly colored dresses. I love his clothes for how much drama they hold with just one idea at the center.
Victoria Beckham Dresses and Knitwear
Victoria Beckham launched her eponymous ready-to-wear label in September 2008 with a ten-dress debut at New York Fashion Week, a pivot from pop stardom and tabloid muse status that the industry initially met with real skepticism. The label spent years losing money, took outside investment from NEO Investment Partners in 2017, and only turned its first operating profit in 2025, all while building a reputation for precise, body-conscious cutting that eventually earned her a spot on the official Paris Fashion Week calendar in 2022.
Rachel Gilbert Dresses
Rachel Gilbert launched her namesake label in Sydney in 2007 at 24, after training at the Whitehouse Institute of Design and working as a designer for Nicky Hilton's label Chick in New York and for Morrissey back in Australia. She built the brand on hand embellishment at a moment when Australia's occasion-wear market barely had any
Proenza Schouler Bags and Dresses
Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez met at Parsons in New York and founded Proenza Schouler, named for their mothers' maiden names, when Barneys bought their senior thesis collection outright in 2002. The label built its reputation on the PS1 satchel, introduced in 2008, and on a run of CFDA awards including the first-ever CFDA and Vogue Fashion Fund prize in 2004.
Port de Bras Dresses: Ballet Lines and Best Buys
Port de Bras is the ballet-minded activewear label Clarissa Egaña started in 2015, and it makes movement look soft on purpose. I like it for dresses and knits that start in a studio and carry on to lunch.
Lela Rose Dresses
Lela Rose trained at Parsons, worked for Richard Tyler and Christian Francis Roth, then launched her own label out of her New York apartment in the late 1990s. The collection built its name on feminine, embellished ready-to-wear and became known well beyond fashion circles when the Bush daughters wore it to their father's first inauguration.
Monique Lhuillier Dresses
Monique Lhuillier launched her eponymous label in Los Angeles in 1996 after struggling to find a wedding gown she liked for her own wedding and deciding to design it herself, with her husband Tom Bugbee joining. What started as five bridal dresses at a single trade show grew into an iconic brand all built around a soft, romantic femininity.
Brandon Maxwell Dresses and Knitwear
Brandon Maxwell grew up around his grandmother's boutique in Longview, Texas, then spent years styling for Nicola Formichetti and as Lady Gaga's fashion director before launching his own ready to wear label in New York in 2015. He builds by draping fabric on a body rather than sketching first, which is why the tailoring fits like it was built for one person even off the rack, and it won him the CFDA's Womenswear Designer of the Year in 2019.
Pleated Pants, Skirts and Shorts: Pleats Everywhere
Pleated pants, skirts and shorts add a fold of interest to any piece and flatter the figure. I gathered my favorite pleated pieces, from accordion maxi skirts to easy trousers.
Christopher Esber Dresses and Shoes
Christopher Esber founded his namesake label in Sydney in 2010, aged twenty two, on a small loan from his parents. The work is built on deconstructed tailoring and sculptural, negative-space cutting, the kind of engineering that makes a dress look undone and precisely controlled at once.
PISTOLA Jeans: Sizing, Fit and Best Buys
PISTOLA is the Los Angeles denim label Grace Na started in 2013 after years spent planning and buying fashion. I trust a jean more when the person behind it knows exactly what shoppers keep failing to find.
Cara Cara Dresses and Knitwear
Cara Cara started in 2019 as a New York apartment project among three friends, Julia Brown, Katie Hobbs and Sasha Martin, who had spent a combined fifty years in fashion design, digital media and finance before deciding to build something of their own. The label's whole identity traces back to a single print, a sun drenched orange pattern that gave the brand its name and its permanent obsession with color and warmth.
LoveShackFancy Dresses and Knitwear
Rebecca Hessel Cohen, formerly a fashion and beauty editor at Cosmopolitan, started LoveShackFancy in 2013 after designing her own halter wedding dress and realizing she wanted to keep making things like it. The label's whole visual language, ruffles, florals, puffed sleeves, vintage-leaning silhouettes, grew out of that single dress and a first capsule sold out of the trunk of her car before any store carried it.
Pillow Talk
Cloud-soft knits, cashmere cardigans, lace camisoles and cozy socks for days that call for comfort. For anyone who wants to look put together while feeling like they are still in pajamas.
SIMKHAI Dresses and Bags
Jonathan Simkhai launched his namesake label in New York in 2010, coming out of his family's apparel manufacturing business and training at Parsons and the Fashion Institute of Technology. The brand built its name on draped eveningwear and body-conscious tailoring, won the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund in 2015, moved its studio to Los Angeles in 2018, and dropped Jonathan's first name from the label in 2023 to put the focus on the wider team.
Ulla Johnson Dresses
Ulla Johnson grew up in Manhattan as the daughter of two archaeologists and launched her eponymous label in New York at the end of the 1990s, right after studying psychology and women's studies rather than fashion at the University of Michigan. Barneys New York bought her collection in 2000, and the label has since built its identity on natural fibers and craft techniques developed with artisan communities in countries including Peru, India and Kenya.
Michael Kors Collection Dresses and Knitwear
Michael Kors launched his own label in New York in 1981, after Bergdorf Goodman's fashion director spotted his talent while he worked at a boutique on West 57th Street and encouraged him to bring her a collection. The Collection line has stayed closest to that original premise ever since: glamorous, easy American sportswear built for how a woman actually moves through her day, not a costume.
Chloé Shoes and Bags
Gaby Aghion started Chloé in Paris in 1952, naming the house after a friend because a woman of her social standing was not supposed to have a job. The label made its name by treating luxury as something you could wear off the rack rather than have fitted at a couture house, and it kept proving that with the designers who passed through, from Karl Lagerfeld to Stella McCartney to Phoebe Philo.
The Park Dresses
Sarah Bonello, who spent years working in lifestyle PR, launched The Park in 2024 out of Los Angeles and New York with a simple premise: make getting dressed easier for busy women. The label built its name on classic basics and activewear designed to be building blocks for an existing wardrobe rather than one-off statement pieces, with an emphasis on circular, waste-minimizing production.
STAUD Dresses and Bags
Sarah Staudinger, previously the fashion director at Reformation, launched Staud in Los Angeles in 2015 with business partner George Augusto, naming it after her own childhood nickname. The brand started as a made-to-order customization concept before pivoting to ready-to-wear once customers made clear they wanted the bags and dresses as designed, a shift that produced breakout accessories like the Bissett and Moreau bucket bags.
Bottega Veneta Shoes and Bags
Bottega Veneta was started in 1966 in Vicenza by Michele Taddei and Renzo Zengiaro, two leathermakers who decided the House would never need a logo. The specific thing they built instead was intrecciato, the woven leather technique introduced in 1975 that turned a manufacturing workaround into the label's entire visual language.
Citizens of Humanity Jeans
Jerome Dahan and Michael Glasser started Citizens of Humanity in Los Angeles in 2003, right after a lawsuit win over their previous denim venture handed them the capital to do it again on their own terms. The label built its name on fit and finish rather than logos, running its own laser and ozone finishing lines so a single wash comes out consistent across thousands of pairs.