New York Fashion Week: The Names-To-Know Part 2

We’ve received dozens of invitations to showings and presentations this season and as usual there is a new crop of names. We track the market yet still it’s hard to keep up to date on all the new brands. So to help us all cut through some of the fat, we’ve shortlisted several designers that are being buzzed about in our circle as well as ones that require a closer look over the next week.

Bruno Grizzo
Take a break from runway shows with Bruno Grizzo’s New York Fashion Shorts on Friday September 11. Curated by artist Konstantinos Memelaou, this film presentation will showcase 14 fashion short videos and films from across the world in a late night screening at the Tribeca Grand. If you’re feeling up for partying—Fashion Week will still be young after all—Misshapes will be DJing after the screening.

Bensoni

Taking varied inspiration from all kinds of pop culture relics—including Serge Gainsbourg and a 1954 erotic French novel, The Story of O—Bensoni create cacophonous clothing, walking the line between elegant and edgy all at once. Started by Sonia Yoon and Benjamin Channing Clyburn as a senior thesis project at Parsons, the young label—they had their fist runway show last February at autumn/winter New York Fashion Week—bears the energy, enthusiasm, and sincere lack of cynicism that only a couple of newcomers could muster up. Their show from last fashion week was a highlight—a supernova burst in the midst of a predominantly black sky—and this season’s showcase promises to be even better as the designers continue to refine their skills.

Bland
Last season, way off the beaten path, buried deep into the Lower East Side—it may as well have been Chinatown—we stumbled upon designer Teddy Willoughby’s Bland showcase. Willoughby called his collection a “meditation on the nevulous contours of blackness, absence and light, and, keeping in line with this, the collection looked straight out of a nightmare. With the campy theatricality of a horror film and the meditative seriousness of a ’40s detective film, Willoughby found an extraneous synthesis of functionality and avant-garde experimentation. His attention to detail, interest in flashiness and perhaps most importantly, his emphasis on wearability make the Bland line one of the most promising collections of the New York Fashion Week.

Rad Hourani
Less of a clothing designer and more of a builder of body armor—or maybe it’s a geometry lesson?—Rad Hourani’s autumn/winter showcase at Soho’s Openhouse Gallery was one of the highlights of last season. While many designers scaled back, Hourani threw caution entirely to the wind: tight leather pants, oversized blazers with dangling fabric, sequins, directionless zippers, angular, clunky shapes—it was pure aesthetic experimentation, with function thrown out the window. The collection made Hourani into one of the most buzzed about young designers in the industry. He’s a safe bet to be a highlight this season as well.

—Jason Campbell