New York Fashion Week is upon us. And if you’ve participated in previous seasons, this calendar will give you flashbacks to how packed it used to be. Some of the highlights are obvious – Tom Ford, anyone? – but there are others you’d be better off not letting slip through the cracks. Here, a roundup of five labels and designers to keep on your radar over the coming week.
Maisie Wilen
Maisie Schloss came up with a rather ingenious method to create her latest Maisie Wilen prints: by entering about 20 of the most diverse things she could conceive into the AI image generator. GIVE HIM. “I was just putting in a lot of very abstract requests and stock images to get weird textures as a starting point,” she says with a laugh. “They were all crazy – like lip gloss, dark shadow space… the more abstract and weird, the better. That’s how you get the most absurd and amorphous extractions.”
Schloss’s design process is entirely digital; she mainly uses Photoshop and Illustrator. And in keeping with the collection’s “hyper-digital aesthetic,” she plans to have the set of her show at downtown showroom Performance New York mimic a green screen. Since it has taken inspiration from CGI techniques and special effects, some models will even have markers – “like what you see in ‘making of’ videos for movies like lord of the rings.”
First known for the featherweight jersey designs favored by the Kardashian-Jenners, Maisie Wilen is becoming increasingly connected to the digital realm. Schloss has plans to expand the clothing she makes both online and IRL; in the case of the latter, its offerings now include evening gowns and menswear. “People our age and younger came up with fashion and just media in general being like that online,” she says. “So it’s hard for me to separate the two — or see why I would.”
Bad Binch Tong Tong
For Terrence Zhou, Bad Binch Tong Tong is all about authenticity. “I think it was Vogue or something that uploaded one of my progress photos today,” he says, clearly amused. “There are a lot of flies in my studio, which is really messy, and the photo they used has the electric racket that we use to hit them on the table.” The designer has never been afraid to be himself – and he’s certainly had many versions of himself over the years. Born in Wuhan, China, where he danced in national competitions, Zhou moved to the US when he was 17 to earn his bachelor’s degree in math and science. He was interning at a bioengineering tech startup in San Francisco when he realized he missed the arts, prompting him to transfer to Parsons (where he graduated in 2020) and turn his bedroom into a design studio.
Since Zhou’s past jobs were all related to his previous career path, the only designer he has ever worked for is himself. But you’d never guess it from the level of craftsmanship and development of Bad Binch Tong Tong’s brand identity. His creations are instantly recognizable, often bordering on sculpture. The most avant-garde are made from found materials; Zhou name-checks Jeff Koons and Louise Bourgeois when discussing his goal to elevate and make people rethink everyday objects such as And names like Rina Sawayama, who reproduced the label on one of her album covers, have taken note. So has the press, despite Zhou never doing any marketing or outreach. His team recently analyzed how many times Bad Binch Tong Tong’s designs have appeared on the cover of a publication and came up with around 75 – not bad for a brand that didn’t have enough resources to mount a runway show on its own one year ago.
Zhou’s first label show will take the form of a dance show (which he’s considering participating in). In the lead, many have asked why he chose “Bad Binch Tong Tong” instead of “Terrence Zhou”. The answer: Tong is his real name – and, well, wouldn’t you really agree that he’s a bad guy?
Foo and Foo
While most designers wax vaguely poetic when asked about their inspirations, Elizabeth Hilfiger is refreshingly open. “This season, my inspiration is that I really can’t stand the heat,” she says en route to New York from Los Angeles, where her warehouse studio is located. “I hate being hot – I just become a raging whore.” Cold-blooded fellows, take note: Hilfiger enlisted tech apparel brand Techniche to bring back the chilly workwear it usually designs for, say, construction workers and Olympians. And if you doubt the effectiveness of the materials, Hilfiger is also offering Foo and Foo brand ice packs.
It’s no coincidence that the Foo and Foo logo is everywhere in Hilfiger’s designs: As she’s sure you’ve guessed by now, her father is none other than Tommy Hilfiger. (In fact, she jokes that she was waiting for me to ask about it when I did—prefaced with an apology—just 10 minutes into our call.) “He’s always saying, ‘Where’s the logo? Where’s the logo?” she says, laughing. “I had a friend consult with me a few seasons ago and she said, no, don’t put it there – there’s no need. And I was like, ‘My dad’s going to have my head if I don’t!’” They share an appreciation for what might be characterized as “American” design, but it almost goes without saying that the industry vet wouldn’t even think to tell at sprawling Lower East Side Master Kitchen Supplies—a move Hilfiger considers in keeping with the brand’s current iteration of “utilitarian basics that are fun, cool, and a little bit badass.”
Plus, in what doubles as her post-lockdown comeback, Hilfiger is taking a risk: Not all of the looks are clearly branded. Well, sort of: “Unless you include a button as a logo.”
Wiederhoeft
For Jackson Wiederhoeft, fashion and dance – especially ballet – are inseparable. Lest you get the wrong idea, one look at just one of his designs will assure you that his name tag has nothing to do with so-called “balletcore”. CFDA/Vogue The Fashion Fund finalist’s upcoming show (which, as in past seasons, includes a dance performance), will be part of the industry’s introduction to the brand.
Wiederhoeft is a self-described introvert who enjoys surrounding himself with extroverts, making it no surprise that he’s recently dressed comedians like Chloe Fineman and Rachel Sennott. If his success with that specific crowd continues at this rate — helped along by his CFDA mentor, Bergdorf Goodman’s Linda Fargo — the comedy scene will look very different. For Wiederhoeft, spring 2023 is all about metal. There is so much in this collection that he estimates one of the skirts weighs 40 pounds.
The CFDA win made Wiederhoeft reconsider whether or not to show this season, and he couldn’t be happier that he decided to say yes. He’s become more ambitious than ever, increasing the number of looks in his collection from 16 to 26. “I mean, we’re all like drama club nerds,” he says. While his designs are nothing like Thom Browne’s, he shares the same appreciation for theatricality and production value that left him “bored” when working for the designer. And with his latest, he’s embraced these qualities more than ever: “It’s like a dream come true to create such a performance piece.”
Gauntlett Cheng
Gauntlett Cheng is a key part of New York’s underground design scene whose three-year absence from the calendar has really been felt. Now, Esther Gauntlett and Jenny Cheng are back—and ready to take it up to 11. From the beginning—when the label was known as Moses Gauntlett Cheng, when they were designing with Vaquera’s David Moses—the brand has been the couple’s passion project. When I first spoke to them a few years ago, Gauntlett was working at Aesop and Cheng was knitting for brands like Calvin Klein; These days, the former is doing finance at an architecture firm and the latter is a project manager at the David Zwirner gallery. And while they may technically be designing on the side, Gauntlett Cheng has become so popular that they’re actually monetizing the brand.
It’s a new era for Gauntlett Cheng in more ways than one. They are more energetic than ever, especially now that they are going ahead with their plans to ignore the fall season. “We were never happy with those clothes and the shows were always, like, a disaster,” says Gauntlett. “Clothes always reflect our mood. We looked back and said, Wait — all the fall shows are so depressing and all the spring shows are so festive and fun.” Then, they asked themselves a question: What do they want to do and what are they good at?” The answer: “Just fun, sexy dresses.” Two years into their exclusive partnership with SSENSE—and, as Cheng points out, the pieces they stock are also all handmade—the duo has gotten a good handle on what they’re selling. Now, they are “totally” against it; a look might include, say, eight yards of fabric, regardless of cost.
