Much has been written about New York Fashion Week. That it’s not impactful enough, that it doesn’t bring enough novelty, that it has been left behind by its European counterparts. But the decrease in power players and top-billing names on the NYFW calendar since the pandemic has made way for an energizing cast of newcomers with fresh points of view and an appetite for redefining our wardrobes and what fashion—and Fashion Week—looks like.
Grace Ling and Jane Wade debuted runway shows this season, each bringing a unique perspective on women’s ready-to-wear with their collections. Wade thrives in reconfiguring the casual and mundane, transforming everyday wear—oxford shirts, gabardine trench coats, twill workwear—into considered but distinctly contemporary items. Ling brings a demure and moody sophistication to the New York fashion landscape; her clothes are alluring in their severity and welcoming in their mystique.
Marcelo Gaia staged his second runway show for Mirror Palais, this time with a tinge of Old Hollywood glamour. In a New York season grounded in the grungy sex appeal of the mid-’90s, Gaia continued to make Mirror Palais stand out for its particular commitment to traditional femininity. Blazing their own trail as well were Sam Finger, Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen, and Bad Binch Tong Tong’s Terrence Zhou, who all staged their sophomore presentations. Finger’s gritty take on upcycled fashion feels just right for today, as do Whalen’s and Zhou’s reinterpretations of the fashion show. Their happenings imagined the runway as emotive performances. Ditto Wenjue Lu, the multidisciplinary studio cofounded by Wnejue Lu and Chufeng Fang, which debuted this season with an off-calendar presentation in Brooklyn. These fresh names usher in both novelty and a change of perspective. Scroll through to discover what they were up to this NYFW.
“I like a little deviance,” said Ling at a preview at her Garment District studio. Prior to launching her eponymous label in 2020, the Singapore-born, New York–based Parsons graduate had apprenticeships at Thom Browne and The Row. Her sinuous and severely cut clothing has been worn by the likes of Jennifer Lopez, Karlie Kloss, and Charli XCX and was included in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition “In America: A Lexicon in Fashion.” Ling has a singular fascination with the body, which she explained derives from both an interest in building around its “universal” shape and her time as a model: “I’m interested in what’s revealed and what’s concealed around the body,” she said. “Being a woman and having been a model, my experience around what was put on my body and someone else dictating how it was presented impacted how I now choose to present it.”
Ling’s spring 2024 lineup, titled Neverland, borrowed from the sculptural work of artists including the modernist sculpture of Constantin Brancusi and the Surrealist precursor Hieronymus Bosch. Ling 3D-modeled sculptural breast pieces and created daggers and thorny roses out of metal to accentuate her sharp, geometric silhouettes. There is a hint of defiance to Ling’s apparel: a handbag shaped like buttocks, a dagger piercing a perfectly proper tailored jacket, the hems of a knitted dress finished to appear as if they’ve just caught on fire in deftly triple-toned intarsia. Grace Ling’s sophisticated fierceness is welcome in the city’s fashion landscape. —José Criales-Unzueta
Where does your mind go while you commute every morning? Some find solace in podcasts and playlists, some dive into literary worlds or get lost in their favorite TV show, and many fixate on Candy Crush or Sudoku. Others, such as designer Jane Wade, are transfixed by the very act of movement, of transporting oneself from their personal safe haven to often banal corporate environments. Much has been declared about the new office attire and how our perspective on business casual has shifted since the pandemic. But Wade, who hosted her debut runway show this season off the CFDA calendar, has somehow concocted a fresh proposal.
“This collection is a response to the way we exist in the corporate landscape,” said Wade, who hails from the Pacific Northwest, at a preview. “We’re basically studying the types of people commuting in and out of the office.” The designer cut her teeth working at Alexander Wang and with Elena Velez, and has a knack for construction and is well versed in a uniquely New York take on contemporary womenswear. There is a utilitarian aspect to Wade’s perspective that is augmented by her precise draping, though her workwear is as versatile as the woman who will don it in the streets this coming spring. Only two seasons in, Jane Wade is certainly on her way. —JCU
By virtue of the location—the imperiled Elizabeth Street Garden—there was a built-in Midsummer’s Night Dream aspect to Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen’s fashion happening. That feeling was extended by the clothes, which were handmade using existing materials and featured historical elements. Called Petite Mort, a rumination on love and loss, it told a tale that was at once personal and universal. Like Elena Velez, Whalen was leaned into female rage in the form of a screeching character, but the overall effect was romantic, with Blake Abbie as a Pierrot/animated garden statue mooning over an elegant Susan Ciamciolo. That designer’s presence in the lineup was telling; this was fashion as performance/catharis. Circles, a symbol of the female, were used in pattern pieces, and at the end, the whole cast lay next to each other, like spokes on a wheel, atop a round tablecloth. Food for thought. —Laird Borrelli-Persson
Wenjue Lu and Chufeng Fang, known as Lulu and Michael, hold “slowness” as their guiding principle. They design one collection a year, the second of which debuted on the last day of New York Fashion Week at a presentation in Long Island City, and rather than overproducing, they offer their pieces in a made-to-order and made-to-fill-demand cadence. Their styles are all created in the same tone of off-white, a blank canvas waiting to be filled with stains and rips and creases. It all started with Lulu’s fascination with muslin fabric while a fashion design student at Parsons, and it’s now developed into an aesthetic inclusive of other textiles that both parallels and supports their ethos.
Studio Wenjue Lu does not make fashion, Michael said at a preview, it makes garments. “The word fashion has an association with overconsumption and capitalism that does not relate to what we do or want to do,” he said. But their garments are still fashionable; they are beautifully made separates with mindful details like sleeves and pant legs cut at an angle to consider the natural bend of our extremities. The studio’s presentation was titled Neither, which Michael explained stems simply from the way he and Lulu see their work: “It’s not fashion and it’s not art, it’s just…neither.”—JCU
Jinjing Lin, an alumna of FIT, returned from China to show Tension Archive among the galleries of Chelsea. There, high above the street, she presented an oasis of loveliness with her collection, titled Debutante. Executed all in white, in keeping with the symbolism (purity) of the coming-out ritual, this was a sensual offering, with knits that clung to the body but in a very different manner than she employed for her graduation collection, when she imagined her pieces “as a lightweight, fluid extension or second layer of a humanoid’s body.” Here, she channeled nature, clouds maybe, flowers certainly. Biodegradable malt stamen fluttered on one dress. Lin’s commitment went deeper than aesthetics; she worked with bio-fiber yarn. The lightness of this collection is the result of sophisticated technical skill, the stem that supports the bloom. —LBP
Sam Finger’s presentation of his sophomore collection, titled Heatwave, in a cavernous industrial loft on the West Side, suited his gritty American aesthetic just fine. The designer, who works with upcycled and sustainable materials, showed a collection characterized by a series of draped dresses and separates in white cotton, whose ease had an effortless sensuality about them. But it was his khaki sportswear pieces—paired with Timberland boots, in case you didn’t know Finger is a born-and-bred New Yorker—that packed the strongest punch. There was a simple black tank shown with a button-front, knee-length khaki skirt; a cheeky bikini with a tie-front top and high-waist bottoms complete with belt loops and fly detail; and a draped down jacket that seemed as if it had been made in haste out of a much larger trench coat and pinned to a white corseted bodysuit. The designer’s vision seems exactly right for now. —Laia Garcia-Furtado
Marcelo Gaia’s Mirror Palais has found a home in the fashionable corners of TikTok and the X platform. Fashion-minded online natives marvel at its überfemme silhouettes and particular brand of sultriness. Just a few weeks ago, the influencer Emily Mariko enlisted Gaia to design an assortment of bridal looks for her wedding, and this past summer he collaborated with model Emily Ratajkowski on a line of swimwear for her Inamorata collection.
Five seasons in, Gaia knows what his customer is looking for, and he knows to play to his strengths: sexy, soft, and beguilingly revealing cutting. This much was on display at his spring 2024 runway show. The designer explained that he consistently finds inspiration in Old Hollywood glamour and the couture donned by its actresses, and this season he found a compelling intersection between ladylike sophistication and 21st-century sex appeal. Most memorable were delicately pleated and crinkled silk separates and playful silk-taffeta micro-skorts. —JCU
Terrence Zhou of Bad Binch Tong Tong has made a name for himself dressing celebrities such as Doja Cat and Rina Sawayama in his buoyant—and viral—silhouettes. But it was his delightfully humorous and lighthearted style that brought droves of editors, stylists, and other fashionphiles to the Tribeca Synagogue on the first day of NYFW to witness his latest spectacle. Following last year’s emotive dance performance, Zhou partnered with Stefanie Nelson to choreograph a number that highlighted his decisively eccentric and playful take on clothing. There were inflated and stuffed silhouettes in the shape of butterflies, octopuses, dragon heads, and more. Zhou knows how to make a statement with his fashion, and this particular show had my seatmates beaming with a childlike innocence that is rarely evoked by a fashion show. —JCU