Archives November 2023

Years after meeting at Norfolk State University, Chris Taylor and Aneesha DuBois realized a vision to highlight fashion brands that weren’t getting the shine that they deserved. Now the company forward-thinking company Well(Un)Known is putting these brands on the map, while also supporting Black designers and the type of cultural education only HBCUs are known for.

Taylor spoke with rolling out about Well(Un)Known, and the importance of Black designers.

Tell us about Well(Un)Known.

Well(Un)Known is an e-commerce founded by myself and Aneesha DuBois back in 2019.

Aneesha had a blog back in 2013 when she was wearing emerging designers and was doing fashion PR, so she had access to a lot of emerging brands and new designers. In her blog, she would just get dressed, and take pictures, and she named the blog Well(Un)Known.

We met at Norfolk State’s homecoming in 2016 and we started talking. In 2018 she ended

by Jeroslyn JoVonn

November 28, 2023

The SHEIN X incubator program is amplifying Black-owned fashion brands through collaborative collections available on SHEIN.

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The SHEIN X incubator program is doing its part in amplifying Black-owned fashion brands through collaborative collections available on SHEIN.

Founded in 2021, the SHEIN X Designer Incubator Program empowers creativity by guiding independent fashion designers and artists through the process that brings their ideas to life – from product development to manufacturing, to marketing and supply chain logistics. Since its launch, nearly 3,000 designers and artists from around the world have been able to leverage SHEIN’s resources to sell their original creations to SHEIN’s global audiences.

In September, SHEIN announced an investment of an additional $50 million into the SHEIN X program over the next five years. This brings the company’s total investment to $105 million through 2028.

On the heels of the announcement, SHEIN welcomed

If there’s any cool kid brand, it has to be DGK, a skateboard company turned fashion powerhouse co-founded by pro skateboarder Stevie Williams—best known as one of the most influential skateboarders of all time—and Matt Daughters of The Kayo Group.

The brand takes your regular hoodies and steps them up. They’re not only affordable (most items are under $100), but they’re super comfortable, and have designs that are not only stylish, but inspiring. DGK is known for their collaborations with creative leaders like Virgil Abloh, Bruce Lee, and brands like Kool-Aid and G-Shock, and fuse together fashion and pop culture in ways that no other brand has done before.

Their fall collections are stylish and cozy. One of these collections is called the Cry Later Collection, which uses the comedy and tragedy masks from

Blu Boy wanted a way to express his artistry, so he decided to design clothing. Born in Atlanta, Blu Boy feels he’s at his best when he’s able to design clothes from scratch, which led him to create his own clothing brand, WNTD. Almost a decade later, he wanted to make designing easier for others and created the “Blu Prints Sketchbook.”

Blu Boy was present at ComplexCon 2023 where he partnered with Toyota to have people take advantage of his sketchbook and create their own designs. He spoke with rolling out about ComplexCon, being a fashion designer, and the importance of Black designers.

How did you present your book at ComplexCon?

I came up with the “Blu Prints Sketchbook” three months ago. It’s a fashion template sketchbook designed to cut the time of fashion design in half. All the templates are already drawn out for you. You get different T-shirts,

In this age of personality, digital influence is increasingly being translated into contemporary labels that fill the gap between luxury and fast fashion. In the decade since the first Scandinavian influencer brands born of blogs (Anine Bing in 2011 and Toteme in 2014), fashion has entered a period of minimalist mania, favoring some of these labels. Yet the stereotype of the region’s style as being almost exclusively clean-lined and tonal belies the evolution of Scandi cool. Think about it: Dressed in a colorful print dress, the Ganni Girl started going global in 2012; and Rotate, the label launched by street-style faves Jeanette Madsen and Thora Valdimars, is celebrating five years of glam party looks.

Today the Scandi Girl wields as much sway as the French Girl in terms of fashion pull. Why? The consensus from the women I surveyed for this story—who came to design through blogging,

Fashion design is a living art, an ever-evolving narrative that weaves together the past, the present, and the future. In doing so, it redefines what it means to be fashionable in a world filled with creativity, tradition, and innovation. 

Mexican fashion design is a vibrant reflection of a country that is geographically diverse and rich in heritage, where ancient traditions and contemporary creativity merge seamlessly.

In this exploration of Mexican fashion design, we will meet three remarkable designers who are elevating Mexico to the global stage. 

Alexia Ulibarri: Embracing Mexican folklore in high-end women’s fashion

Alexia Ulibarri has carved a niche for herself, placing Mexican folklore at the heart of her brand, catering to the contemporary luxury market for women. Her journey from a young enthusiast to a designer dressing global celebrities is a testament to her passion for fashion.

Alexia Ulibarri hails from San Luis Potosí, Mexico, and discovered

Tired of waiting for endless talk of change to actually spur action, the Swedish Fashion Council (SFC) drew a line in the proverbial sand and took a stand for change in the industry, establishing Fashion X last year as a way to move away from market-centric shows and focus on designers and other ways of understanding the industry. “If we look into Fashion Week, it’s [about] events connected only to fashion, and what we try to do with Fashion X is also connect fashion to culture,” SFC CEO Jennie Rosén told Vogue Runway.

The second edition of the event, which gathers fashion folk from across the globe in Stockholm, took place last week. In four jam-packed days in Stockholm, guests listened to talks (some in collaboration with Dazed) on diversity, emerging talent support, Gen Z, forestry, and the secondary market. They enjoyed African cuisine and locavore fare

Six runway shows will take over the York Street Yards during Denver Fashion Week (November 11 to 19). Most of the hype leading up to the event is focused on California-based luxury brand St. John, which is kicking off the festivities with an opening show, and seven-year-old designing prodigy Max Alexander’s fashion event debut on day seven.

At its core, though, DFW is about celebrating Colorado designers and fashion creatives. We’re highlighting the five local brands to catch on the runway, so you can finally be the most fashionable person in your crew.

Back in 2017, Ray Howard recognized that the fashion industry lacked gender-nonconforming clothing, so the

It was just in September that Willy Chavarria’s Spring 2024 offering, his “most emotional collection” to date, as he described it to Hypebeast, was brought to the runway. The Fresno, California-hailing fashioner has always viewed his design practice as a medium for self-reflection, a platform for building up those who look, see and feel like he does. But what was most special about that Spring 2024 collection was its ability to articulate the different facets of Chavarria’s being: facets that, at one point, felt like barriers to his success in the notoriously exclusive world of fashion.

Chavarria’s powerful, heartfelt interpretation of those historically disadvantaged signifiers — his queerness, his biracial identity as the descendant of an Irish-American mother and a Mexican-American father, and his working-class upbringing among immigrant farmers in California’s San Joaquin Valley — became awe-inspiring for anyone who could see themselves in them. And on the evening of