Rakee Ke Chen: The Visionary Redefining Fashion at NYFW 2025

At New York Fashion Week 2025, one of the most electrifying Asian designers setting the stage ablaze is none other than Rakee Ke Chen. Her latest collection, Echo Wanderer, transcends the realm of mere fashion—it’s a groundbreaking fusion of art and technology. By transforming melodies and rhythms into mesmerizing patterns, Rakee is redefining the very essence of fabric, pushing it to express the inexpressible.

This moment at NYFW isn’t just a showcase—it’s a seismic shift in the fashion landscape. Just a year ago, Rakee was captivating audiences with her digital collections at London Digital Fashion Week 2024, where her visionary work caught the attention of Epic Games. Now, she has not only unveiled a revolutionary music-inspired print collection but has also masterfully steered SCHNABBIT, the avant-garde streetwear brand she leads as Chief Designer, from a virtual concept to a full-fledged, show-stopping runway spectacle. Rakee isn’t just designing clothes—she’s crafting the future of fashion, one electrifying stitch at a time.

Echo Wanderer: Where Music Meets Fabric

In January 2025, the Ehco Wanderer project she developed for a French film festival gained attention after being published in a magazine. While the film festival presentation never materialized, the images caught the eye of The Ethereal Fashion Show’s organizers, leading to an invitation to showcase at NYFW. In preparation, she worked relentlessly, balancing design refinements, production coordination, and team management to bring her vision to life. For Rakee, design is about more than aesthetics. It’s about storytelling. Echo Wanderer began with a simple idea: What if music could be seen, not just heard?  To bring this vision to life, she developed a system in TouchDesigner that translates melodies into visual patterns. Each beat, rhythm, and tone influences the prints, creating organic, flowing designs that feel like they’re moving even when they’re still. Once the digital patterns were finalized, they were applied to fabric using digital printing and water transfer techniques, preserving the energy of the original sound.

But for Rakee, it wasn’t just about the prints. She also played with texture and structure, using quilting and layered fabrics to add depth. The result is a collection that doesn’t just depict sound—it feels like it moves with it. At The Ethereal Fashion Show during NYFW 2025, the concept came to life. Models walked through a futuristic landscape, their garments reflecting unseen sound waves. The setting, paired with a music visualization film, made it clear—Echo Wanderer is more than a collection. It’s an experience.

SCHNABBIT: From Digital to NYFW Reality

While Echo Wanderer is a reflection of Rakee’s personal vision, SCHNABBIT’s evolution over the past year is just as remarkable.

As Lead Designer, she helped take SCHNABBIT from a digital-only concept—previously showcased at London Digital Fashion Week 2024—to a physical collection that debuted at NYFW 2025.This shift wasn’t just about producing clothes. SCHNABBIT has always been known for its bold storytelling and rebellious streetwear aesthetic, inspired by the brand’s signature character: a rabbit with crocodile DNA, symbolizing individuality and fearless expression. Translating this virtual identity into real-world garments meant preserving its futuristic, high-contrast visual language while making it wearable, tactile, and functional.

On the NYFW runway, this vision came to life in unexpected ways. Instead of conceptual, tech-driven garments, it focused on the raw energy of street culture, incorporating graffiti-inspired prints, oversized silhouettes, and bold neon accents. The collection leaned into the playfulness of cartoonish motifs, featuring SCHNABBIT’s signature rabbit character in vibrant, exaggerated forms. Unlike Echo Wanderer, this collection was designed for wearability and cultural impact, reflecting the energy of modern streetwear and its connection to digital identity. As models moved through the show, a massive SCHNABBIT bunny appeared, wielding a Money Gun, spraying SCHNABBIT-branded currency into the audience. It was a moment of spectacle, blurring the lines between fashion, performance, and entertainment. The energy in the room shifted. This wasn’t just a show—it was a scene from a world Rakee had meticulously designed, brought to life through 3D modeling, digital animation, and bold, futuristic aesthetics.

Her expertise goes beyond fashion. With a background in industrial design, costume design for sci-fi films, and digital world-building, she constructs narratives as much as she designs clothing. Her work was highlighted by Epic Games, cementing her reputation as a designer who understands the language of digital media. Her ability to integrate virtual landscapes, cinematic storytelling, and interactive elements into fashion makes her one of the most forward-thinking creatives in the industry today. SCHNABBIT is evolving into something bigger than a clothing brand. The comic-style world-building, virtual environments, and expanding digital lore suggest a future that could easily translate into video games, animated series, or metaverse experiences.

From designing digital costumes for sci-fi films and video games, to winning major awards, to bringing her designs from the metaverse to NYFW, she has continuously pushed the boundaries of fashion, technology, and storytelling. Rakee Chen is redefining what it means to be a designer in today’s world. At NYFW, she proved that the future of fashion is not just about what we wear—it’s about the worlds we create.