Author: Joan Kennedy

New York-based designer Ashlynn Park is the winner of the 2025 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund. The designer, a veteran pattern-maker whose resume includes stints at Yohji Yamamoto, Calvin Klein and Alexander Wang, is on a winning streak, having picked up the CFDA’s emerging designer of the year award just last week. She founded her label Ashlyn, which focuses on sleek, understated pieces with subtle embellishments, in 2019.Julian Louie, the designer of Aubero, and Stephanie Suberville of Heirlome were the runners up. Park will receive $300,000, while Louie and Suberville will receive $100,000. All the designers will also be offered mentorships. Model…

Shortly after Nicki Patel, a California-based hospitality executive, ordered a dress from New Delhi-based House of Masaba for a friend’s Indian wedding, she received a warning from the brand on WhatsApp that she would be hit with an import duty if she continued with the transaction. She thought to herself, “How bad could it be?” and confirmed the order. Then a $260 bill from shipping service DHL landed in her inbox, over two-thirds of the price of the outfit itself, $375. It nearly doubled the total cost of getting the outfit for her. “I was backed into a corner to…

Apparel label Frame named Silvia Merati chief executive officer. Merati joins the Los Angeles-based brand from Golden Goose, where she led the brand’s direct-to-consumer expansion as CEO of North America from 2019. Nicholas Dreyfus, Frame’s CEO since 2020, will transition to an executive chairman role.“[Merati] brings a wealth of global experience and a deep understanding of modern luxury retail,” said Dreyfus in a statement. “Her appointment will further strengthen our leadership team and position Frame for its next phase of global expansion.”Prior to Golden Goose, Merati held roles at Yoox Net-a-Porter and Intermix. The executive will look to drive international…

The Row’s annual sample sale, where Olsen acolytes can score rare discounts of up to 75 percent on the label’s shoes, coats and blazers, has always gotten fashionable New Yorkers’ blood pumping. But in recent years the sale has gone from an “if you know, you know” event to a collective mania — with lines around the block warranting coverage from Vogue and The Daily Mail. Starting Tuesday, the night before the sale opened, tents — many housing paid line sitters dispatched by the startup Same Old Line Dudes — filled West 18th Street. (In addition to sample sales and…

The eldest members of Gen Alpha may only be just starting high school, but fashion is already thinking about what — or who — is coming next. Babies born starting this year (through 2039) are entering a new generational cohort, Generation Beta, coined by Mark McCrindle, futurist and founder of McCrindle Research. And though most members of this generation have yet to be conceived, trend forecasters are beginning to speculate on what they will be like. Given they’ve yet to speak for themselves (or at all), obviously, it will be a while until Gen Beta has any sort of meaningful…

Véronique Nichanian, who has served as artistic director for Hermès Men’s for 37 years, is stepping down, an Hermès spokesperson has confirmed.Nichanian, who is fashion’s longest-standing creative director, announced the news in an interview with Le Figaro, telling the French newspaper she has been talking the move over with Hermès chief executive Axel Dumas and artistic director Pierre-Alexis Dumas for “a year or two.”“Hermès was especially kind enough to let me choose the moment that seemed right to stop … It’s time to pass the baton,” she added.Nichanian’s long tenure as creative director at Hermès, during which she defined the…

Middle East retail firm Chalhoub Group announced on Wednesday that it had invested in New York-based ready-to-wear brand Willy Chavarria. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Chalhoub Group joins FAE Fashion Ventures — a brand-building platform within entertainment company First Access Entertainment, led by music executive Sarah Stennett and investor David Grimber — which quietly invested in the brand last year.The partnership brings together a “trifecta of retail expertise, creative innovation, and cultural relevance,” according to a statement by Chalhoub Group, which operates over 950 stores and works with a number of international labels, such as EssilorLuxottica and…

This season at New York Fashion Week, designers made it work.Facing challenges from every direction — tariffs that seem to change day-by-day, dimming consumer sentiment, wholesale upheaval and a luxury sector in crisis — brands did their best to position themselves for success in an uncertain environment. “[We saw] determination in terms of business, but more importantly, there’s really great creative optimism and reach that we’ve seen on the runways that reflect originality and a very American, New York point of view,” said Steven Kolb, chief executive of the Council of Fashion Designers of America. A number of designers, including…

As fashion waits to see what the winds of creative change bring across the Atlantic, the breeze is already blowing in New York. At New York Fashion Week this season, three brands put new designers in the driver’s seat, following the departure of their founding designers. Diotima designer Rachel Scott is succeeding Proenza Schouler’s Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, who are now heading up LVMH-owned Loewe; buzzy upstart Area, founded by Parsons students Beckett Fogg and Piotrek Panszczyk in 2014, reintroduced itself under Balenciaga Couture and Tom Ford alumnus Nicholas Aburn; while Phillip Lim co-founder and the brand’s chief executive…

The Council of Fashion Designers of America has announced nominees and honorees for its 2025 awards, set to take place on Nov. 3.Nominated for Womenswear Designer of the Year are Daniella Kallmeyer, Ralph Lauren, Tory Burch, Carolina Herrera’s Wes Gordon and last year’s winner Rachel Scott, the designer of Diotima, who was named creative director of Proenza Schouler in September. Mike Amiri, Eckhaus Latta designers Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta, The Row’s Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Thom Browne and Willy Chavarria (who took home the prize last year) are up for American Menswear Designer of the Year.The Accessories Designer of…