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• 2009 new Fashion - New York Fashion Week: new designers on the block

  
  11 February 2009
  

  Watch out; a new wave of US designers including Keith Lissner, Alexander Wang and John Whitledge are creating a stir in New York...

  

  The city that never sleeps has some exciting new talents emerging, including this dress by Keith Lissner

  New York Fashion Week, which starts on Friday, might not be the most important on the calendar, but it's certainly the most commercial. The patronage available from American Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour and the Council of Fashion Designers of America can make or break designers, both through the CFDA/Vogue awards, to which Marc Jacobs owes much of his success, and the prospect of a feature in Wintour's magazine.

  Yet huge changes are afoot. Last week, it was announced that as of 2010, the twice-a-year extravaganza will no longer be held under the tents at Bryant Park, its home for the past 15 years. Add to this the persistent rumours that Wintour, the most powerful figure in fashion, might step down, and the fashion world is on the verge of a collective panic attack.

  But despite – or perhaps because of – these seismic shifts, the city that never sleeps has some exciting new talents emerging. "We are seeing designers who have always been fashion editors' darlings finally get their day in the sun," says Amina Akhtar, fashion editor for New York magazine's popular website, nymag.com. "There is a major recession on, and people want clothes that are investment pieces. A beautiful dress or a fitted, well-cut suit can last many years."

  One of those editors' darlings is 31-year-old Keith Lissner, who has been labelled the next Marc Jacobs. Lissner trained at the London College of Fashion and moved back to the US after graduating in 1998, designing for Perry Ellis and later Ralph Lauren. In 2006, he launched his own line, to critical acclaim, and is in talks with several luxury department stores, including Harrods, to distribute his clothes in the UK.

  One reason for his success is that Lissner grew up surrounded by couture, with his family owning a boutique in Chicago filled with gowns by Christian Dior, Bill Blass and Geoffrey Beene. His fans on the New York celebrity circuit – including Janet Jackson and Natasha Bedingfield – love his timeless "demi-couture" evening wear (see main picture), which incorporates invisible inner corsetry to create the most flattering shape, and are sewn with French seams rather than machine-finished edges.

  "Keith is one of my favourite designers," says Tamsin Lonsdale, a mover and shaker who splits her time between London, New York and Los Angeles, and hosts a private members-only Supper Club. "I recently wore a beautiful white beaded tutu dress and felt like the belle of the ball."

  Alexander Wang, aged just 24 (and no relation to Vera), is another hot name on the New York fashion scene, with a level of success that has astonished his peers. His first collection was launched in 2007; since then, he has been nominated for the career-changing Swarovski Womenswear Award by Vogue and the CFDA. His A-list clients include Kate Hudson, Michelle Williams and Lindsay Lohan, and his empire now includes a collection of shoes and a diffusion line of T-shirts, simply called "T". He's also stocked at six UK shops.

  Two more rising stars are over the bridge in Brooklyn, in the form of designers Lisa Mayock and Sophie Buhai. They launched the Vena Cava label in 2003, taking inspiration from their own collections of vintage clothing and aiming to create classic pieces that had the feel of family heirlooms: one Vena Cava dress last season had a train that fell like butterfly's wings, in purple silk adorned with gold sequins.

  Then there is avid surfer and California native John Whitledge, who created Trovata, a small vintage-inspired menswear collection, nearly seven years ago. It was immediately snapped up by New York department store Barneys, and after a feature in American Vogue, Whitledge expanded his brand to include womenswear. One season later, he won the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Award. Rather than hosting a traditional runway show to display his autumn 2007 collection, he dreamt up two fictitious European socialites, who, clad entirely in Trovata throughout the week, were photographed at every glamorous party. Rumours about the couple spread throughout the press, with some theorising that the pair were the creation of Borat star Sacha Baron Cohen.

  Despite the world's economic woes, Whitledge is optimistic. He takes inspiration from style icons such as Jackie O, her son John F Kennedy Jr, Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, but also draws, especially this season, from "the little joys in life… the little quirks and surprises that keep you looking up rather than looking down".

  Optimism is also the key to Lutz & Patmos's spring 2009 collection. Since its debut in 2000, Tina Lutz and Marcia Patmos's label has become New York's go-to brand for luxurious and eco-friendly knitwear. They created a "little sister" line, Leroy and Perry, last year, and have enlisted Birkin as a guest designer this year (others have included Christy Turlington, Sofia Coppola, Liv Tyler, Julianne Moore and Kirsten Dunst). For the winter, the pair, who source environmentally friendly yarns and support fair trade in Uruguay, created a Peruvian hat, using fur from alpacas that had died from natural causes, that flew off the shelves.

  Lutz and Patmos say they are "tired of five-minute trends and longing for integrity". In the mission statement for their current collection, they wrote that they were thinking about "opening the shutters after the winter… and the first rays of spring sunshine". It's certainly been a long, cold winter – but perhaps it's time to at least think about stepping into the sun.

   

  (telegraph)