2025 was the year for designers, with creative directors jumping from brand to brand and emerging, maybe even breakout, talent somehow getting a piece of the industry’s overstimulated attention, fashion got interesting again. Learn the names we’ve been obsessing over now, by 2026 your friends will pretend they discovered them first and you’ll just nod, perhaps with a touch of suffering.
Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen
You might know her from glossy magazine pages, a sculptural NYFW debut, Rosalia’s open admiration, Julia Fox’s napkin dress, or Suki Waterhouse’s granny core florals. Either way, Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen is a Brooklyn-based designer that has played visual tricks on me before. At first glance her work feels like it came straight out of a grandma’s closet, in the best way possible, maybe a Victorian grandma so stylish her old-world wardrobe lives in a museum, then you take a second look and realize it’s doing things no antique ever could.
Whalen creates preindustrial, historically informed pieces from her studio since 2022, using deadstock textiles, vintage linens, and found fabrics, turning what most would call leftovers, into collections that still manage to exist between sculpture and wearability. Everything is an atmospheric moment, think candlelit East Village performances, corsets draping like armor, and shadowed studio settings. Whalen doesn’t just make me screenshot her intimate designs, I half-considered slapping a vignette filter on them. There’s something about that freshly-old effect that sneaks up on you.
Danial Aitouganov & Imruh Asha for Zomer
Zomer is a very young label, officially founded in 2023 by designer Danial Aitouganov and stylist Imruh Asha. Aitouganov had been stacking up résumé points at Louis Vuitton, Chloé and Burberry before feeling the urge to do something less predictable, while Asha built a reputation as a stylist and fashion director at Dazed long before they ever called a studio their own. They met in Amsterdam, flirted with the idea of a brand for entirely too long, and eventually landed in Paris with a name that conveniently means “summer”.
To be honest, Zomer isn’t a brand I was looking for, until I very much was. Under this duo the label clearly knows its way around contemporary art and culture, always playing with the big three, color, texture and silhouette, in a measured, dare I say, subtly avant-garde way, mocking anyone still thinking fashion should behave. The result is clothing that borrows childlike audacity, with just enough adult supervision to keep you from rolling your eyes.
Ellen Hodakova Larsson for Hodakova
Just when you’re sure you’ve seen what “upcycled couture” can do, Hodakova comes along and flips it on its head to humiliate your definition. The label started from a very simple philosophy in 2021 Ellen Hodakova Larsson knew too well, take discarded materials and make them into something people can gasp at again. Larsson grew up watching her mother rescuing old garments, and that resourceful instinct is now the backbone of the brand. Every piece feels like a makeover of the overlooked, where belts become skirts, antique buttons become dresses, and even spoons and guitars have their moment on the red carpet, next to avant-garde and conceptual aesthetics.
Few labels come along and make you question why you ever cared about “new.” Hodakova does it in Stockholm, digging through scraps and deadstock your favorite names would ditch, Larsson would like a word though. Sure, she scored the 2024 LVMH Prize, cash and mentorship included, but you can keep the trophy, the clothes do the convincing. Proof that a mix of fashion rejects and fresh vision can be more interesting than anything in a boutique peddling. A boutique that somehow manages to sell you brand-new pieces with an old, worn-in since-the-90s kind of charm. Might as well skip the act and support someone who actually makes clothing that’s worth noticing from the first stitch.
Steve Doan & Phan Huy for Phan Huy
Guess what love for artisanal craftsmanship and Vietnamese heritage can get you? Phan Huy. A couture house led by yet another duo, of stylist Steve Doan and… well, Phan Huy, no plot twist here. Think intricate embroidery, silk weaving, natural plant-based dyeing, hand-draping, and Vietnam’s rich textiles, the weapons of choice. Huy is a touch different from your average breakout-designer, a touch more fairytail-ish if you will, with sculptural folds that befriend asymmetry, silhouettes that make you rethink what “fitted” even means, and contemporary tailoring built on old-school technical mastery. Talk about respecting tradition.
If Jhené Aiko trusted them, I know I do. The brand was only born in 2023, but it has already warmed-up to the fashion world. SS26 really did the trick, popping up on every established-name lover’s feed, reminding us exactly what this atelier isn’t all about. I never thought I’d be excited about sparkle again, but here I am with half the couture industry, kind of fun, not going to lie. Add in sculptural silhouettes and intriguing textures, and you’ve got a new kid on the couture block teaching runway fossils a thing or two.
Somewhere between this year’s endless office-swapping and recycled aesthetics, a few designers kept their heads down and let the work carry the weight. Call them emerging, breakout, or whatever label helps you feel organized for a minute. The point is paying attention while they’re still building, not once they’re busy playing the industry’s same musical chairs everyone swore they’d never touch.
