9 April 2025 |
Sylvia wears dress by TORISHEJU, gloves by ATSUKO KUDO, shoes by JIMMY CHOO
“I’m in absolute happiness about the new generation,” the stylist Patti Wilson says. During her decades- long career, she has worked with everyone from the photographer David LaChapelle to Beyoncé—and has also made a point of championing young talent. “There are so many great ones,” she says, beaming. The couturier Robert Wun and irreverent Paris Fashion Week darling Duran Lantink are among her latest success stories. In past seasons, she has styled their shows and helped rally key industry players to support them, building a community invested in their success.
Fashion has lately seen an influx of young designers. In 2003, The Princeton Review estimated that the odds of becoming a world-renowned couturier were about 160,000 to one. Fashion-school enrollment has nearly tripled since then. So how can ambitious up-and- comers find success?
“There’s no recipe,”says Lucien Pagès, the French PR guru who helped Simon Porte Jacquemus and Jonathan Anderson build their followings. “You need to be unique because there are so many brands.” However, he’s optimistic that designers today have unprecedented agency. “Validation used to be very difficult to get. You had to be approved by certain buyers, by certain editors-in-chief… It was a painful and uncertain filtering process,” he says. Now, a strong social media presence can help you bypass a few turns in that labyrinthine production. Ditto sending your clothes to buzzy stylists. “They’re crucial,” Pagès says. “They have the power. Celebrity stylists love working with young designers. And a celebrity can change your life.”
Today’s newbies may have more autonomy but that doesn’t mean their paths are more straightforward. “It’s easier to get yourself out there, but it’s harder to gain attention,” says Liliana Sanguino, the co-director of Parsons’ fashion design and society MFA program in New York. “They must understand their superpowers— that will make a difference.” Lauren Amos, founder of the avant-garde Atlanta boutique ANT/DOTE, concurs. In this oversaturated market, “people are thirsty for real design and creativity. You’ve got to be willing to take risks,” Amos continues. She finds new brands via social media, competitions such as the LVMH Prize, Dover Street Market’s influential showroom, and word of mouth.
But figuring out the right risks takes time. So does assembling a team, finding manufacturers, and scrounging up enough money to pay for everything.
from left: Cameryn wears dress by TANNER FLETCHER, leggings by ATSUKO KUDO; Sylvia wears top by TANNER FLETCHER, knickers by ELISSA POPPY
“They should be true to themselves, but they also need patience. Even the top student won’t graduate into greatness,” Sanguino says. Pagès advises cutting your teeth at an established brand before launching your own. It’s there, not in a classroom, where you’ll learn the unglamorous need-to-knows of the business and forge key relationships. “It’s fine to launch after 30, 35,” Pagès says. “Build a community first. You’ll be more prepared and have a better chance.” There’s no surefire formula for catching influential eyes. Pagès and Amos both struggled to pinpoint what sets off their new-talent radar. “It’s a feeling,” Pagès says. They just know it when they see it. To earn Wilson’s attention, just drop her a line: “Send me a letter. Really. I love it.”
Here, meet seven burgeoning brands that have captivated the fashion set with their rousing designs.
from left: Cameryn wears dress by TANNER FLETCHER, leggings by ATSUKO KUDO; Sylvia wears top by TANNER FLETCHER, bra by FRUITY BOOTY, knickers by ELISSA POPPY
KATE BARTON
Instagram: @katebarton
katebartondesign.com
“Is that AI?” The New York designer Kate Barton gets this question a lot. Plenty of her 39,000 Instagram followers have mistaken her metallic corsets and sherbet-hued gowns for digital garments. But they’re very real. The corsets are hand- molded leather and she produces the gowns with her patented draping technique that makes the fabric look like it’s in con- stant motion. “I like the illusion and the playfulness,” Barton, 28, says. “It sparks conversat- ion, and that has helped draw attention.”
Since launching in 2022, Barton has shown at New York Fashion Week, dressed Katy Perry, and had her fashions featured on Emily in Paris— after the show’s costume designer slid into her DMs. “I don’t think I would have all these opportunities without social media,” Barton says. “It’s been instrumental in establishing my brand without having many industry connections yet.”
Talent and grit help too. Barton, a Kansas City native, felt “unfulfilled” after studying fashion merchandising at the University of Alabama. So she pivoted, landed a design internship, taught herself to sew via YouTube, and earned a master’s degree at the Savannah College of Art and Design—in that order. It was there that she developed her draping method. “It’s crazy. What I started on my first day is now our patented tech- nique.” That signature innovation also won her a prestigious Italian fashion award and enough prize money to open her studio in New York.
Barton dreams of becoming a blockbuster brand à la Michael Kors. But for now, she says, “My priority is smart business decisions, understanding our customer, and developing [wearable] clothes true to the brand’s DNA.” Her spring collection is on track, proffering uncanny evening looks and easy staples. A pair of baggy lavender trousers with a jutting belt closure, in particular, brims with Korsian commercial promise.
from left: Sylvia wears bra by FRUITY BOOTY, skirt and shoes by NICCOLO PASQUALETTI; Cameryn wears dress by NICCOLO PASQUALETTI
TORISHEJU
Instagram: @_torisheju_
Want a surefire way to get noticed? Have Naomi Campbell open your debut Paris runway show. That’s what the London- born designer Torishéju Dumi did in 2023. “I still ask myself how she ended up on my runway,” Dumi, 32, says, recalling the moment the stylist Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, her fairy god- mother of sorts, delivered the news that Campbell saw her work and wanted to walk.
Dumi met Karefa-Johnson at Central Saint Martins in the UK capital while completing her MA in fashion design in 2021. Her collection resonated deeply with the stylist, who encouraged her to reach out when she was ready to showcase her work. Dumi said she needed some time, feeling it was “audacious” to launch a line straight out of grad school without a clear message or money in the bank. Instead, she taught at the London College of Fashion, saving up for her next move.
While teaching, Dumi designed a capsule collection inspired by her Nigerian grandfather’s traditional garments and the African spirit Mami Wata. Karefa-Johnson soon reached out again via Instagram and Torishéju’s inaugural show was set in motion. Since then, she has staged two successful runway shows, seen Zendaya wear one of her gowns on the red carpet, and garnered attention from the conceptual retailer Dover Street Market’s CEO, Adrian Joffe. He agreed to stock her collection and guided her through the complexities of production.
Inspired by a shipwreck, the Torishéju spring/ summer 2025 collection showcased decadent designs reflecting chaos and uncertainty. “The world needs some sort of flood for beauty to grow out of,” she muses. Her dresses—sheer black numbers stuffed with marshmallowy fluff—resembled exploded lifejackets or jellyfish blooming in water, while eccentric tailcoats and tartans suggested fallen aristocrats.
Dumi teases big changes on the horizon but won’t elaborate. For her, success is financial stability and artistic understanding. “I want the world of Torishéju to be crystal clear. I’ll be so happy if I can achieve that in my lifetime.”
Sylvia wears dress by RENAISSANCE RENAISSANCE, leggings (around waist) by ATSUKO KUDO
NICCOLO PASQUALETTI
@niccolopasqualetti
niccolopasqualetti.com
“It always moves between reality and a dream,” Niccolò Pasqualetti says of his eponymous, genderless line. His ascension since launching for spring/summer 2022 has indeed seemed dreamy. Winning the prestigious Who Is On Next?’s Franca Sozzani Award in 2021 provided the financial springboard for his debut, and last year he was an LVMH Prize finalist.
Already carried by elite retailers, including SSENSE and Dover Street Market, Pasqualetti was further thrust into the spotlight post-LVMH Prize. Yet the unassuming Italian designer is keen to maintain his own pace. Courting too much attention too quickly is among his biggest fears—and rightly so. It’s a perilous trap that befalls many young talents, leading them to burn out and close up shop. “That’s not the goal for me,” Pasqualetti, 30, says. “It’s about building something long- lasting.”
Raised in a Tuscan town, Pasqualetti recalls drawing and assembling expressive outfits from his parents’ clothes.“I’m an only child and I had to entertain myself in the countryside. So I created worlds that didn’t exist,” he says. “That spontaneity in the creative process has stuck with me since.”
It stuck with him while studying fashion in Venice, working for The Row in New York, getting his master’s at Central Saint Martins, and through his two and a half years at Loewe in Paris. “I was quite free in terms of what I could design,” Pasqualetti says. “But I decided that it was the moment for me to tell my story.”
Now based between Paris and Tuscany, where many of his pieces are made, Pasqualetti appreciates the time he spent at other brands—both because of the practical experience he gained and the contacts he made, many of whom support him with introductions and advice.
For spring, Pasqualetti has continued world-building, divining a radiant fantasy inspired by the sea and its ethereal creatures. “Then it became more and more real,” he says. That’s Pasqualetti’s secret superpower: making deftly constructed looks—like slouchy, liquid silver trousers paired with a sharp white jacket— that are simultaneously transportive and sublimely wearable. “I try almost everything on, and my friends and my mom do as well,” he says. “That connection with reality is very important to me. Even if the inspiration is abstract.”
Sylvia wears bra by FRUITY BOOTY, dress (worn as skirt) by RENAISSANCE RENAISSANCE
ZOMER
Instagram: @zomer.official
zomerparis.com
You won’t see zomer’s founders, Danial Aitouganov and Imruh Asha, taking a bow after their runway shows. Instead, they cast doppelgangers to do the honors. “I feel it’s not about us—it’s about the brand,” Aitouganov says. For spring, the duo cast female versions of themselves in the role. The idea was born out of a campaign they released ahead of their first collection, for spring/summer 2024. Featuring children styled as fashion icons—Anna Wintour, Grace Coddington, Steven Meisel, Suzy Menkes, and more were represented by zomer-clad mini-mes—it was an adorable sensation that undoubtedly helped their debut catwalk’s attendance. Major buyers like Bergdorf Goodman, the historic New York department store that now stocks a hefty assortment of
zomer’s playful, colorful wares, were in the front row.
“Having a viral campaign definitely works,” Aitouganov says, laughing. “Our first one is hard to top, but going viral is not the main objective. The first goal is to have something beautiful to stand behind.”
Aitouganov, who focuses on design, and Asha, a celebrated stylist and the fashion director of Dazed, met when the former was in fashion school in Amsterdam and the latter was working at a buzzy concept store. “We’ve been friends since our twenties,” Aitouganov says.
After collaborating on a few photoshoots, 32-year-old Aitouganov and Asha, 33, were tempted to launch a line, but reality reared its head. “We didn’t have money. It’s a
deadly industry once you enter the fashion cycle. So we went our separate ways.” But a few years later, after Aitouganov worked for major brands including Chloé, and Asha established himself as a stylist, the pair decided it was time. In September 2023, zomer debuted at Paris Fashion Week.
The Dutch word for summer, zomer wasn’t the line’s original name. At first, it was hiver, the French mot for winter. That’s objectively amusing when you look at the brand’s splashy, effervescent offerings, none of which evoke frigid climes or seasonal depression. Some key examples are spring/summer 2025’s explosive floral prints and the season’s painted leather shorts that have a reimagined fuchsia-and-ecru hibiscus blooming from the crotch. “We love color and always try to add a humorous touch, but at the same time, sophistication,” Aitouganov says. “It’s important for us to bring a smile to our runway.” Mission accomplished.
Sylvia wears dress by KATE BARTON, gloves by ATSUKO KUDO
RENAISSANCE RENAISSANCE
Instagram: @renaissance_renaissance
renaissancerenaissance.com
“Surreal” is how Cynthia Merhej felt when she saw Lady Gaga wearing the sheer, black, tulle dress from her brand, Renaissance Renaissance, this past December. Based between Beruit and Paris, the Lebanese designer recalls, “Three weeks before, there were literally drones and warplanes flying over our heads [in Beruit]. And then a week later, I see Lady Gaga in my dress. I was like, ‘What the hell is going on?’”
Merhej, 35, launched Renai- ssance Renaissance in 2016. She treated the line’s early days as her own “school of fashion,” embracing the opportunity to learn pattern- making, construction, and the intricacies of fabric. Of course, it helped that she had grown up in an atelier—her mother, Laura Merhej, is a celebrated Lebanese designer who now helps with her daughter’s brand. “I learned through her how you can use fashion to tell stories, to express things, how to build collections,” Merhej says. After studying illustration and visual communication at Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art in London, she realized she “wanted to create worlds, not just images,” and Renaissance Renaissance was born.
The brand’s name, Merhej says, represents duality: “It’s all about finding harmony, not being binary. I like the in-between spaces people ignore when they’re too busy looking at black or white.” She also appreciates that the word is classical but universally represents progress, rebirth, and evolution.
As Renaissance Renaissance has grown, it has garnered fans such as Chloë Sevigny and Lily-Rose Depp, and has received myriad accolades, including being shortlisted for the LVMH Prize and named a Fashion Trust Arabia award winner.
The brand’s spring/summer 2025 collection was born out of Merhej’s experience of living in a war zone and the idea of resilience. “All I was seeing around me was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, war. But I needed to find some kind of lightness,” she says. She found it in parachutes, the material she used for her key pieces, like a blood- red skirt ruched in Marie Antoinette-worthy fashion. “Parachutes are associated with the military, but they have a positive connotation of freedom,” Merhej continues. “I imagined this woman jumping out of a plane with a parachute and landing in a field of poppies because poppies symbolize resistance.”
For Merhej, the definition of success is having a healthy brand while maintaining her own mental health. “I want to stay in a great place, and I don’t want anyone who works for me to get burnt out. I’m definitely going to make a Lexapro T-shirt at some point,” Merhej says, laughing. “Honestly, I have to give it to my psychiatrist—you saved my life.”
Cameryn wears dress by ZOMER, leggings by ATSUKO KUDO, shoes by JIMMY CHOO
TANNER FLETCHER
@tanner.fletcher
tannerfletcherstudios.com
“We like to imagine a world where there’s no assigned seating,” says Fletcher Kasell, one half of the duo behind the genderless brand Tanner Fletcher. Founded in 2021 by Kasell and his partner, Tanner Richie, both 27, the New York-based label empowers its customers to dress with flair, panache, and individuality. Case in point? The suit Bad Bunny wore for his 2023 Time magazine shoot. A white number bedecked with baby-blue bows and paired with a ruffled shirt, the look epitomizes the essence of Tanner Fletcher, a brand born without limits or preconceptions.
Midwest natives—Richie from Wisconsin and Kasell from Minnesota—the pair (now a couple) met as freshman roommates at the University of Minnesota. Both began with what Kasell described as “practical, realistic” studies—Richie went with interior design and Kasell flirted with pre-med. “After I took some chemistry classes, I knew it was not for me,” the latter recalls. However, a pivotal summer internship in New York sparked their passion for fashion, leading them to ditch Minnesota for the Big Apple and transform a tote-bag side hustle into the brand we see today. “We realized these projects were selling and thought, OK, we could have a real business here.”
With lace accents, tulle skirts, and toile prints, Tanner Fletcher’s spring/summer 2025 collection cements its quirky, whimsical aesthetic. “We love when people can just see a piece and know it’s Tanner Fletcher,” says Kasell, who describes his label’s spring outing as having “English-countryside vibes.”
The brand’s celebrity fans (like Kacey Musgraves) and savvy social-media strategy have helped culti- vate a devoted customer base. “Social media is every- thing,” Kasell says. “It’s how we communicate with our customers.” Also paramount to their success? Courageously asking for help. After being a finalist in the 2023 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund, Kasell established a relationship with CFDA CEO Steven Kolb. “At first I was really shy, but then it occurred to me—I should keep asking for what I want. People are happy to help. You have to get past the scary Devil Wears Prada thing.” The duo’s latest meeting was with Tommy Hilfiger, who offered recommendations for lawyers and accountants.
“We want Tanner Fletcher to be an accessible, joyful force, not a niche, but something for everyone,” Kasell says. He aims to take genderless clothing mainstream. “It’s not just for queer people. We want to take our customers out of a box rather than put them in one.”
Sylvia wears bra by FRUITY BOOTY, skirt by NICCOLO PASQUALETTI, gloves by PAULA ROWAN
REVERIE BY CAROLINE HU
Instagram: @carolineqiqi
“Radical romanticism” is how the Chinese designer Caroline Hù describes her work. With outsize, sculptural silhouettes, painterly fabrics, and her signature bows, the designer uses fashion as a cocoon of sorts—a shelter of beauty to protect her from our increasingly complicated reality. “The harsher the world feels, the more I want to experience and express romance,” she says.
After studying patterns and fabrics in Beijing, Hù earned a BA in womenswear design at London’s Central Saint Martins, followed by a master’s in fashion design from Parsons in New York. The designer, now 36, then launched her namesake label in 2018. Her intricate handmade debut collection, which featured a poetic combination of textures, gentle pastel hues, and tulle embellishments fit for a fairy tale, immediately earned all the right kind of attention, leading her to be nominated for the LVMH Prize and win the Business of Fashion’s China Prize. However, this deluge of attention brought challenges. “It was too early,” Hù admits. “People expected answers about my business plan, retail prices, production. All the stores wanted to buy, but I didn’t even have a team.” Soon after, she pressed pause and headed to Shanghai and Hong Kong. In China, she built a team capable of carrying her vision forward.
Today, Hù balances her artistic aspirations with commercial realities. Her runway collections act as a stage for her artistic voice, while her commercial offerings adapt these elements for wider wearability. “The art is why I do it,” Hù says. “The commercial side is what helps me survive.” Also helping her survive (and then some) is her collaboration with Adidas, for whom she makes coveted sneakers spangled with bows or fashioned from frilled lace.
Success, in her eyes, isn’t instant fame or scores of celebrities sporting her clothes but a slow, deliberate process of building something meaningful. “I just want people to know my brand,” she says. For spring/summer 2025, the designer wanted to create a “fantastic dream world.” She succeeded, presenting ebullient looks in vibrant colors, abstracted floral prints, and dramatic, kinetic shapes. Her focus on motion was underscored by the dance performance that closed her Paris runway show. “I always try to find different ways to show my ideas,” she says.
With a growing global presence, Hù is optimistic about the future. Her advice to aspiring designers echoes her own approach to the industry: “You’ll never find the perfect time to launch—just be brave and do it.”
Sylvia wears dress by TORISHEJU, gloves by ATSUKO KUDO, shoes by JIMMY CHOO
Photographer MAYAN TOLEDANO
Fashion Editor IMAAN SAYED Text KATHARINE K. ZARRELLA
Models CAMERYN RUBY at Ricky Michiels Management and SYLVIA ANDERSON at New York Models
Hair SHIN ARIMA
Makeup IONA MOURA
Set designer ARIEL STEINBACH
Lighting technician JOHN LAW
Fashion assistant CHRISTOPHER CONTALDI
Production MINA
Producer DIMITRY BOCHAROV
Taken from 10 Magazine USA Issue 04 – MUSIC, TALENT, CREATIVE – on newsstands now. Order your copy here.
