Photos: The X Factor: The CFDA/Replica Handbag Store Fashion Fund Finalists
Photographed by Peter Lindbergh1/10The Elder Statesman
Malibu may not seem an obvious base for designer Greg Chait (with model Raquel Zimmermann), who started out in 2007 with heavy-gauge cashmere blankets. But the Arizona native, who now uses the fabric for his California-feel bajas, beanies, and intarsia sweaters, believes the beachfront city is right for that very reason: “Having distance from a fashion capital helps me keep a sense of naïveté.” His wanderlust contributes, too. The 34-year-old sources buffalo horn for eyeglasses from Germany and raw yarns from Mongolia. Then there’s the label’s lofty appellation, which was once his late brother’s nickname. “It holds everything I do to a high standard,” says Chait. “How things are made, how we treat people: That’s all part of luxury.”
Fashion Editor: Tonne Goodman
Photographed by Peter Lindbergh2/10Tabitha Simmons
Alexander McQueen and Dolce & Gabbana stylist Tabitha Simmons, 39, admits to having “always loved the shoe side of things. I’m fascinated by how it defines and alters the silhouette.” Having none-too-fond memories of being ushered off to school in unsightly clogs, Simmons founded her namesake line of footwear in 2009 as a chance to create quirky shoes with personality, like her signatures, a cricket-stripe woven-silk-and-linen espadrille and a vertiginous floral-print sandal with corseted heels. The mother of two, who lives with her photographer husband, Craig McDean, in New York, says her day job plays a counterintuitive role in the creative process. “As a stylist, I’m looking for new trends. With my shoes, I want to do the opposite and make pieces with longevity.”
Photographed by Peter Lindbergh3/10Jennifer Fisher
To mark the 2005 birth of her son, Shane, Jennifer Fisher, 41, stamped his name on a 14K-gold tag and hung it around her neck on a long, hefty chain. Friends, acquaintances, even strangers eagerly asked for their own, and “business sort of snowballed,” she recalls of her serendipitous start. “I was soon taking orders over the phone in my bedroom and shipping all over the world.” What resonates with her fans (Rihanna, Solange Knowles, Naomi Watts) is the personal nature of her bijoux, like calligraphic-initial diamond rings and engraved pendants. Fisher’s grandmother never removed an L-shaped diamond charm ring, and her silversmith grandfather created gritty rodeo buckles and bolo ties, which provides insight into the New York–based jeweler’s aesthetic, not to mention her nonreverential approach to fine- and base-metal adornment alike.
Photographed by Peter Lindbergh4/10Jennifer Meyer
“My formal jewelry training started and ended when I was six,” says Jennifer Meyer, 35, laughing. The L.A.-based designer remembers the first cloisonné pendants she crafted at the kitchen table and fired in her artist grandmother’s kiln. It wasn’t until 2005, at the suggestion of her actor husband, Tobey Maguire, that she revisited the art of bijouterie, designing a delicate 18K-gold leaf necklace that was anything but half-baked. Her latest pieces cast a rainbow of color over gold, with turquoise-and-lapis pyramid earrings and opal rings that conjure inky clouds of green and red. “I love it when people tell me, ‘I never take your jewelry off. I sleep in it,’” says Meyer, a mother of two, who herself wears her precious stones alongside charm necklaces made by her five-year-old daughter, Ruby. “That’s the way it should be, a part of you.”
Photographed by Peter Lindbergh5/10Giulietta
There’s always a touch of magic about Federico Fellini’s movies, none more potent than his spellbinding leading ladies, with whom Sofia Sizzi has a special kinship, naming her line Giulietta after the revered filmmaker’s Juliet of the Spirits and her mother’s childhood nickname. “I always have Southern Italian women as a reference,” says the 34-year-old Florentine-born designer, who cut her teeth at Gucci before moving in 2000 to New York, where she worked for Donna Karan and Calvin Klein. Sizzi takes traditional silhouettes—A-line skirts, long-sleeved tops, and tea-length dresses—onto a modern landscape. “The essence of Giulietta is about classic and timeless shapes,” explains Sizzi, who channeled the eccentric style of Peggy Guggenheim and the goddess-like proportions of Sophia Loren for spring. “It’s a language that’s been lost in time.”
Photographed by Peter Lindbergh6/10Assembly New York
Having grown up in Oregon as a carpenter’s son, Greg Armas unsurprisingly applies a love of construction to the offhanded cool of his menswear and womenswear (and named his line what he did). “I learned design by taking vintage clothes apart,” says the Manhattan-based Armas, who built convertible vest-to-dress pieces for spring. He even rolled up his sleeves to personally overhaul the interiors of his Lower East Side store, where the local artistic community drops in to hang out and shop his rustic-minimalist classics with their raw edges and elongated proportions. “It’s not about being lo-fi,” says the former art curator, 33. “It’s about being hands-on. These clothes aren’t showpieces. They’re about function and accessibility, and I like there to be an authentic, human touch.”
Photographed by Peter Lindbergh7/10Suno
Sift through Suno’s growing catalog of vibrant prints, and it’s hard not to feel a sense of optimism. That exuberant energy goes beyond surface level: New York–based designers Erin Beatty, 33, and Max Osterweis, 38, have been committed to putting ethically sound practices on the map since 2008, when they made their first collectsion in Nakuru, Kenya, from vintage kangas. In recent seasons, they’ve extended those sustainable production values to Peru for knitwear and India for embroidery. “There is a visual language that comes from the first collectsion, but in order to grow, we had to start developing our own fabric and finding inspiration everywhere,” says Osterweis. For spring, the duo brings a rosy outlook closer to home: prints sprigged with peonies and lilacs that pay homage to antique-American quilting and floral textiles.
Photographed by Peter Lindbergh8/10Illesteva
The economy was pretty gloomy when Justin Salguero, 34, Daniel Silberman, 30, and his sister, Alina Silberman, 28, launched Illesteva, a line of sunglasses, in 2009. Even the artisans in the German factory where their first samples were hand-produced didn’t think the retro-futurist circular designs were a bright idea. “People told us it couldn’t be done,” says Daniel. Still they persevered, making orders of five or six pairs at a time. Opening Ceremony and downtown enfant terrible Terence Koh—who is rarely seen without the label’s mad scientist–style Meyer shades—were among the first to spy their potential. Other forward-thinking creatives followed suit, and Illesteva has since collaborated with the likes of André Saraiva and Dasha Zhukova. Thinking outside the frame, the trio hired an orchestra in lieu of models for its first New York Fashion Week presentation. The playlist? Mozart, Beethoven, and Tupac. An amalgamation of the words illest and ever, the label’s name is a nod to hip-hop culture (better known as Jus Ske, Salguero spins for Jay-Z and Pharrell). “Bold, colorful, timeless” is how they describe their vision. What about cool? “We’re not interested in cool,” says Daniel. “We want to be around 30 years from now.”
Photographed by Peter Lindbergh9/10A.L.C.
Having dressed a sizable portion of Hollywood’s A-list, stylist turned designer Andrea Lieberman has more major fashion moments tucked under her belt than most. Before the movie stars (Gwyneth, Cameron, Kate Hudson), there were music stars, including Jennifer Lopez and Gwen Stefani, who called upon Lieberman to help her launch her own line, L.A.M.B. Lieberman’s namesake four-year-old label, A.L.C. (the C is for Collection), however, touches on the real-life concerns of a working wardrobe, the kinds of stylish, stealthy basics that women in and out of the limelight rely upon. “I spent years putting together wardrobes for different personalities and body types, and that helped me understand what makes a woman feel good,” says Lieberman, 44. Drawing on the jet-setting adventures of her past, she infuses global rhythm from Kyoto to Cape Town into her spring collectsion, like kimonoesque silhouettes and prints inspired by the murals of the Ndebele tribe.
Photographed by Peter Lindbergh10/10Wes Gordon
“A part of me is a sucker for drama, grandeur, and classic elegance,” says Wes Gordon. “But at the same time, I’m 26, I live on the Bowery, I’m part of a different generation.” An example of his old school–new school M.O. is a shimmering saffron ball skirt topped off with a chain-mail tank. That the Atlanta native honed his craft balancing the avant-garde approach at Central Saint Martins with internships at Oscar de la Renta and Tom Ford menswear (where he experienced “an obsessive quest for perfection”) goes a long way toward explaining the duality of his vision. The seeming disparity extends to women who wear his clothes: from First Lady Michelle Obama in a houndstooth metallic jacket to First Hipster Lena Dunham, who turned heads at the Met Costume Institute Gala in his trailing, malachite-green satin dress.
