Rising Fashion Brands to Shop This Fall

   Rising Fashion Brands to Shop This Fall

There’s never an easy time to build a new fashion label. But these rising brands made big moves—like making their runway debuts or launching a new womenswear category—in the midst of a global pandemic. Fashion in 2022 isn’t about being on trend so much as it is about having a deeply original sense of personal style. And so, these designers go their own way, offering unique looks that suit every individual style personality.

Love fresh takes on tailoring? Check out Sukeina’s origami folds, Interior’s asymmetrical cuts, Puppets and Puppets’ fruit prints, or Saint Sintra’s trompe l’oeil bows. Handcraft and one-of-kind upcycled pieces more your thing? Diotima does its crochet work with artisan partners in Jamaica, while Sindiso Khumalo teams weaving, printing, and embroidery workshops in South Africa and Burkina Faso. Meanwhile, Conner Ives, Jawara Alleyne, and Dauphinette turn deadstock fabric into treasure. Searching for the perfect unconventional LBD? Look no further than the daring cutouts and delicate strap details at Maximilian and Nensi Dojaka.

1) Sukeina    

sukeina fall 2022

COURTESY OF SUKEINA

Sukeina means “bright light” in Wolof and is the name of designer Omar Salam’s late mother. Salam, who was born in France to parents from Senegal and Mauritania, and was later adopted by an American woman, draws inspiration from his personal history for his signature paneled dresses and separates made in New York using intricate West African braiding techniques. “It sounds a bit cliché, but we are more connected than we know,” he told BAZAAR earlier this year. “The idea comes from that possibility.” For fall, he’s also experimenting with a new origami tailoring technique.

2) Conner Ives

Just two ye
ars out of Central Saint Martins, London-based American designer Conner Ives has a devoted following for his reclaimed patchwork T-shirt dresses (Rihanna is a fan). Eco-responsibility is paramount for the young creative, who designs almost exclusively with deadstock fabric and recycled vintage clothing. He frequently draws inspiration from American female archetypes in his collections, which for fall ranged from Jackie Kennedy to Kamala Harris.

3)Sindiso Khumalo

 COURTESY OF SINDISO KHUMALO

An architect and textile designer by training, Capetown-based Sindiso Khumalo believes in the power of handcraft. A 2020 co-winner of the LVMH Prize, she partners with NGOs and small workshops in South Africa and Burkina Faso on woven, crocheted, hand-printed, and embroidered looks, and is excited to expand her retail accounts globally. “There are so many different artisans on our continent, and I’m really just here, as a designer, to try to highlight the work that they do,” she told BAZAAR earlier this year. “An order from Net-a-Porter can literally transform revenue in a community.”

4)Jawara Alleyne

The spirit of punk and DIY is alive and well for the Jamaica-born, Cayman Island-raised, London-based designer Jawara Alleyne, cofounder of Nii Agency with photographer Campbell Addy. His fall runway debut offered a confident—and eco-conscious—approach to showing skin via safety-pinned bits of deadstock fabric that formed spiral shapes as they twisted around the body.

5)Saul Nash

British designer and movement director Saul Nash has had quite an eventful run: In May, just a week after winning the International Woolmark Prize, he picked up the Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design. Nash’s focus is hybridizing track suits and tailoring—think a suit jacket with zip-off sleeves. Nash likes to show how clothes move IRL, not just stomping up and down a runway, so he always casts dancers for his shows.