The spring 2024 season of New York Fashion Week kicks off on Thursday, September 7th with Coach celebrating creative director Stuart Vevers’s 10-year anniversary and ends on the 13th with another finale courtesy of Luar. In between, though, the roster is filled with dozens of shows, including some career-defining moments (Peter Do’s debut collection for Helmut Lang) and a handful of brands set to make their mark for the first time. A few names, like Diotima and Grace Ling, may ring familiar, while other labels like Chan Chit Lo and Sho Konishi are more indie, but just as promising. Below, familiarize yourself with five of the new brands before they take on NYFW for the first time.
Chan Chit Lo
In 2017, Venus Lo traveled back to her native Hong Kong following the untimely passing of her father in order to sort through his things and clean out his house. It was during this emotionally fueled moment that Lo discovered the newspapers, cassette tapes, and miscellaneous items her father had been stashing for years. The discovery invoked inspiration—and Lo’s Parsons MFA graduate collection, titled “Hoarders,” was born. “Hoarding is not just about the stuff, it’s about collecting memories,” the designer tells W. Comprised of denim pieces and sweatshirts she collected from New York factories, the deconstructed, streetwear-inspired collection introduced her aesthetic to an audience for the first time. It also solidified the ethos of her brand, named Chan Chit Lo after her Chinese name. The phrase, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” lives on throughout each of her collections. “This idea is core to my DNA,” she says. “Every season, I approach factories in New York and China to see if they can donate unwanted pieces or dead stock fabric. I make use of this material to create new life.”
A look from Chan Chit Lo autumn/winter 2021.
While Lo remains loyal to the ideas presented in that first collection, she has also expanded on the aesthetic. Now, a more tangible brand signature comes in the form of a crocheted flower, introduced last season, and promised to return and expand for spring 2024. This time around, the inspiration for the collection comes from another family member: her seven-month-old son, Lucas. “I want the clothes to tell the story of new parenthood,” says Lo, who will celebrate her first CFDA-sanctioned presentation with a performance that showcases her journey through motherhood and invokes memories of the audience members’s own parents. To Lo, fashion isn’t about luxury, but telling a story. “My collection is really about the people who surround my daily life, and a lot of them are working people,” she adds. And she wants her presentation to play with all of those ideas. “It’s like a museum or gallery that everyone can access.”
Grace Ling
Debuting at NYFW is a big moment for any small brand, but Grace Ling is no stranger to big moments. Since launching her eponymous line in August 2020, the designer has dressed everyone from Jennifer Lopez to Karlie Kloss, and even had a design featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of the Costume Institute’s 2021 exhibition, In America: A Lexicon of Fashion. Even before all of that, however, she built up quite the résumé, graduating from Central Saint Martins and Parsons School of Design before going on to work for Thom Browne and The Row. And in what seems like another life at this point, Ling originally started off as fine artist, working with scuplting and 3-D printing—skills she now uses to enhance her collections. Grace Ling has become known for its sleek designs, simple color palette, unexpected cutouts, and 3D-printed chrome details. “It’s a sense of eccentric elegance and it’s a balance between formality and sensuality,” Ling tells W of her brand’s aesthetic. It makes sense, then, that her pieces have become hot commodities for the “It” girls of the age, like Charli XCX and Emma Chamberlain. “I have concluded that everybody just wants to be sexy,” she says. “But I do pride myself in doing sexy in a very sophisticated way. It’s not just about showing skin and wearing very little, it’s about the way the body’s being concealed or revealed.”
If you’ve seen any of Ling’s designs, it’s likely been her popular “Butt Bag.” Ling feels the piece encapsulates the brand as a whole, describing its “witty spirit and sophistication,” words she also uses to define her customer, who she adds, “is constantly in dialogue with world events and art.” Ling, herself, is inspired by culture—artists like René Magritte and directors like Stanley Kubrick and Wes Anderson—though the latter’s pale color palette lives in contrast to Ling’s blacks, whites, and grays. Ling balances out this artistic mindset with undeniable business acumen. She speaks assuredly of her plans to expand the brand, which currently boasts just five employees. “At the end of the day, fashion is business,” she says. “I want to be a good boss and have a good team. It’s not about the fancy, the fame, or whatever.” Though surely, the famous clients help.
Diotima
Diotima’s collections may be filled with skin-baring tops and dresses just begging to have their moment during golden hour on a beach vacation—but don’t call this brand resortwear. “I always find that hilarious,” Rachel Scott, the brand’s founder and creative director, says of the false equivalency. “I think it’s just because I’m Jamaican and I make crochet, but there’s a lot of tailoring, there’s a lot of wool.” Indeed, the more you look through Scott’s work at Diotima, the more the story of the brand evolves. The heart of Diotima absolutely lies in the crochet work; the ruffled dresses and tops seem to organically grow around the wearer’s bodice like moss on a tree. But other pieces live in contrast to the crochet (see: a beautifully tailored wool suit and a pleated skirt). The real magic appears when Scott combines these two aesthetics, and decorates a button-down with those ruffled layers of crochet, or completes an understated gray long-sleeve dress with an eyelet collar.
Sho Konishi
When Sho Konishi set out to start his own eponymous fashion line following his graduation from Parsons, he felt a bit at odds. The Japanese designer had just finished a thesis on sustainability in fashion, so creating a ready-to-wear collection without prospective buyers didn’t feel like an authentic next step. Instead, Konishi dove into the world of custom, made-to-order pieces, perfecting his craft and solidifying a futuristic, armor-like aesthetic that he calls “Android.” The look became a hit, and Konishi gained opportunities to dress various celebrities like Lizzo, Chloe x Halle, and even Beyoncé for magazine spreads, music videos, and public appearances. Recently, though, Konishi realized he couldn’t fully express himself through these one-off pieces—and it was time to return to collections. “I was ready to create a collection again and to express, ‘Hey, this is my 2024 spring/summer vibe,” he tells W.
