{"id":88920,"date":"2024-04-16T17:00:09","date_gmt":"2024-04-16T17:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/?post_type=articles&p=88920"},"modified":"2024-04-17T14:25:04","modified_gmt":"2024-04-17T14:25:04","slug":"gen-z-designers-grazia-usa-spring-2024","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/gen-z-designers-grazia-usa-spring-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"New York\u2019s Gen Z Designers Prove the Future of Fashion is Bright"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Clockwise, Grace Ling, Dauphinette, Advisry, Tanner Fletcher. Photo Credit: Launchmetrics, Victoria Huerta, Fujio Emura, Selwyn Tungol<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
<\/div>\n

ADVISRY<\/h3>\n

KEITH HERRON, 23<\/h4>\n
\"\"
Photo Credit: Fujio Emura, Amir Hossain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Keith Herron may be barely out of his teens, but the Sacramento-born, New York-based designer\u2019s Over-the-Rainbow-themed runway show attended by rappers Dave East and Smino during New York Fashion Week in September marked Advisry\u2019s 10th year in business. Herron started the streetwear-meets-tailoring label as a 13-year-old hypebeast obsessed with 1990s BBC Ice Cream, Bape, and Supreme when his mom declined his request for pocket money to purchase vintage grails he was coveting. \u201cShe told me, \u2018Rather than investing in someone else\u2019s brand, you should invest in your own,\u2019\u201d Herron recalls. \u201cFive minutes later I went on my laptop and started designing.\u201d Herron moved to New York to study film at Fordham University but dropped out a year and half in to focus on his label full time. The Gen Z designer only produces one collection per year and makes everything out of deadstock, a climate-centered approach he credits to taking AP Environmental Science in high school. \u201cI learned a lot from that class about the effects that we\u2019ve had on the environment and how to prevent certain measures from ruining this place,\u201d he says. Working with leftover fabric presents a unique set of challenges, but with constraints comes creativity. \u201cOften it\u2019s, \u2018Dang, we\u2019re out of pink tweed, what do we do?\u2019\u201d says Herron, pointing to a dickie that was originally supposed to be a dress. \u201cWe cut it completely in half and paired it with a collared shirt and pleated khaki shorts. It made for this kind of masculine-meets-feminine look that was just really cute to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

TANNER FLETCHER<\/b><\/h3>\n

TANNER RICHIE AND FLETCHER KASELL, 26<\/h4>\n
\"\"
Photo Credit: Selwyn Tungol, Courtesy Tanner Fletcher<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bow-festooned label Tanner Fletcher\u2014now stocked at Nordstrom, Ssense, and Shopbop\u2014 began as a pandemic-era side hustle when Tanner Richie and Fletcher Kasell\u2019s post-grad employment plans fell through. The couple met as freshman roommates at the University of Minnesota before transferring to LIM College, where Richie studied interior design and Kasell, fashion merchandising. The Gen Z designers channeled their love of home decor and thrifting into making their now-signature sheet shirts out of a trove of crisp cotton poplin Dior bedding from the 1960s, still in its original packaging. \u201cIt\u2019s about sharing that thrifting mindset that you can always find treasures that are already out there,\u201d says Kassel of the label\u2019s eco-minded ethos. Sometimes the \u201cout there\u201d is their own slightly cluttered East Williamsburg combined home and studio space. For their beauty pageant-inspired Spring\/Summer 2024 runway debut, Richie dreamed up a statement-making ivory gown for former Miss Universe R\u2019Bonney Nola, who closed the show, that was fashioned entirely from ruffled strips of excess lace trims and silk charmeuse fabric left over from production runs of blouses, button covers, and blazer linings. The same technique was also applied to a suit, a crop top, and a tunic. \u201cFuture heirlooms are what we like to call these pieces,\u201d says Richie.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

GRACE LING<\/b><\/h3>\n

GRACE LING, 27<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\"\"
Photo Credit: Launchmetrics, Courtesy Grace Ling<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Leave it to the architect of a certain white stretch-jersey bumster maxi skirt<\/a> suspended from the neck and waist by slim cords that Jennifer Lopez wore to perform on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon <\/i>in 2022 to make zero-waste design somehow seem, well, sexy. Singapore-born, New York-based designer Grace Ling uses CAD, CGI, and 3D-printing technology to calculate exactly how much fabric and metal is needed to create her signature skin-baring looks. \u201cI was drawn to the idea of being able to create things without having to waste all of this time and materials,\u201d says Ling, likening her design process to architectural modeling. For her Spring\/Summer 2024 runway debut, Ling recut the J.Lo look\u2014which also features a cropped leather blazer\u2014in black to illustrate that good design never goes out of style. The Parsons- and Central Saint Martins-trained designer also developed a 3D d\u00e9grad\u00e9 novelty knit that that fades from opaque to sheer to create the illusion of censored bars and proved she\u2019s a dab hand at tailoring with a pair of perfectly cut high-waisted trousers and an expertly engineered bralette held in place by a slim, aero aluminum bar. \u201cI like to say sustainability is a design process, not necessarily an end product,\u201d says Ling.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

DAUPHINETTE<\/b><\/h3>\n

OLIVIA CHENG, 25<\/h4>\n
\"gen
Photo Credit: Yanran Xiong<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe reason that there\u2019s always Kermit green cashmere at Dauphinette, regardless of the season, is because I bought out this big lot of deadstock from a local mill a couple of years ago and I\u2019m still not done with it,\u201d says designer Olivia Cheng, explaining the presence of of heavier materials in her Spring\/Summer 2024 collection. \u201cWaste not, want not\u201d and \u201cone man\u2019s trash is another man\u2019s treasure\u201d are old-timey credos that this Gen Z designer can get behind. \u201cI just have buckets of random things lying around my studio,\u201d she says. Raised in suburban Chicago, Cheng launched what she calls the \u201cHappiest Brand on Earth\u201d in 2018 with $2,000 and a capsule of reworked vintage coats while she was still a business major at New York University. In a few short years she\u2019s seen her resin-preserved flower chainmail exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art\u2019s Costume Institute and \u201cThe Orchid Show\u201d<\/a> at the New York Botanical Garden, opened a store on Bleecker Street, and done a J.Crew collaboration. Upcycling almost doesn\u2019t seem an adequate term to describe the wildly inventive bricolage looks in her new collection that repurpose items that might otherwise be discarded, like a cashmere coat dripping with vintage cameos, broken jewelry, brooches, seashells, porcupine quills, and a crocheted potholder or a shift dress made from 200 matchbooks quilted into clear PVC. \u201cI don\u2019t think people realize how many strange and wonderful items you can find on eBay,\u201d says Cheng.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Read GRAZIA USA<\/em>\u2019s Spring Issue featuring cover star Kacey Musgraves<\/a>:<\/strong><\/h4>\n
<\/div>\n