Pyer Moss was founded by Kerby Jean-Raymond back in 2013, having worked for Kay Unger before founding his own label. The designer has often been lumped into the streetwear category throughout his career, but his works are far more expansive than that labelling suggests.

Some of his collections have been lazily labelled as “provocative”—especially his Spring 2016 collection. The range, which brought the truth of police brutality to an audience decidedly unwilling to hear such a message at the time. While the industry has come around to celebrating Jean-Raymond, there’s no doubt that his activism ruffled feathers within an industry that was initially unwilling to address the issues happening around it.

Unafraid to speak his truth, sometimes this has seen Jean-Raymond pigeonholed in a different way, misunderstood as angry or abrasive. A Vogue interview from September 2020 began with Jean-Raymond began with the designer venting and explaining this frustration, planning to largely forgo interviews after he’s seen his words and deeds often misinterpreted by the press and/or fashion-following public.

Misconceptions and industry frustrations aside, it’s clear that many have connected with the clothes themselves. You’ll find wide-ranging collections that cover everything from Black Cowboys of the 19th century, a celebration of the freed black community of Weeksvillle, or clothing inspired by unsung pioneer of rock n’ roll Sister Rosetta Tharpe. The important thing is—no matter what theme Jean-Raymond is tackling with his designs—he is always portraying conversations happening within Black culture, while simultaneously celebrating Black excellence of the past, present and future.

While the runway collections have been successful all on their own—with apparel ranging from sweatshirts to modern suiting, accessibility into the Pyer Moss brand is likely to come by way of a long-running Reebok collab. Tapping into the brand’s past while utilizing new technologies and silhouettes, it’s a partnership so successful that the sportswear brand recently brought on Jean-Raymond to be the global creative director for Reebok as a whole.

Abasi Rosborough is the joint brand of Abdul Abasi and Greg Rosborough. The core of the brand is futurism, born from the staidness seen elsewhere in the menswear suiting industry that they’d seen first-hand.

The foundation of the brand itself was triggered by a combination of conversation and necessity. While holding a position at Ralph Lauren, Rosborough once asked a set of senior Italian tailors where they saw the suit going in 50 years. When they explained to him that the suit was perfect and unlikely to change, Rosborough viewed the response as an opportunity to innovate. This didn’t fit in with what Rosborough saw in the real world; after witnessing a male flight attendant unable to put a suitcase in an overhead cabin because of his suit, it was clear the “perfect” garment needed a reexamination. He got in touch with Abasi, who he’d met studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), together and the genesis for Abasi Rosborough was born.

The duo have similarly esoteric, but architectural influences, counting Leonardo DaVinci, Zaha Hadid and Dieter Rams amongst them. The clothes reflect these influences, injecting modern touches and utilitarian details (influenced, undoubtedly, by Abasi’s time serving in the military) into the designs. Case in point: The duo have altered the suit silhouette with raglan sleeves to ensure you’d never get left like that flight attendant. Each season, the pair’s tight range of clothes focuses on a variety of tailored outerwear that complements the core products.

Sustainability is also on the mind of the brand, but not in the greenwashed way we’ve been seeing lately. “The best way for the [fashion industry] to be sustainable is for “fast-fashion” to go out of business,” said Abasi in a CFDA interview. Instead of simply using a different kind of cotton, Abasi Rosborough is focused on what actually makes fashion so bad for the environment—overproduction.

To break this cycle, the brand is combining AR, VR and CGI to create 3D visualization of garments that customers will be able to view and pre-order, with the product only being made once ordered. As Abasi said in the same CFDA interview, “We’re not making clothes until we get validation from our community.” It’s a bold approach but one that the world of fashion is seemingly moving towards and if 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that future-proofing yourself never hurts.

Given that the pair were finalists for both the 2017 LVMH Emerging Designer Prize and the 2019 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund, it’s clear that Abasi Rosborough’s view of the future is one worth watching out for.

Post-Imperial was founded by Niyi Okuboyejo, the Nigerian-born designer who moved to Houston at 14. Having had his interest in fashion piqued by Helmut Newton’s photography of the Yves Saint Laurent 1966 “Le Smoking” collection, he went to Parsons to study womenswear before moving over to menswear.

The name is a nod to the past and the future. Speaking to GQ, he said "It's called Post-Imperial because it's about the time after old regimes, and creating for today. It's cool to look at old photos and fantasize, but we should be creating our own images. Twenty years from now, people should look at our time and fantasize about it."

While Post-Imperial was always supposed to be a full collection, Okuboyejo couldn’t afford to launch a full brand in New York at the start. “I decided the smart thing was to do accessories,” he told [Inside Hook]. Referring to it as, “the Ralph Lauren plan,” Okuboyejo sought to stand out from the crowd by leaning on his heritage.

It’s this idea that fuels how Okuboyejo brings Nigerian culture into his clothing, an idea that branches down to production, with production recently moving to Kenya from the US. Using fabrics such as Funtua cotton and naming collections after Jollof (a West African rice dish), Okuboyejo infuses these touches throughout his collections, going as far as to work directly with dyers for a collaborative approach to the fabrics.

Now, with a collection that goes across all categories and a variety of collaborations with the likes of Engineered Garments and Larose, it’s clear that—with or without a partner—Okuboyejo is presenting his vision for apparel beyond accessories. Even still, Post-Imperial’s goals are larger than just clothing. “I want to create a new Africana that is not reliant on the West or Western or white validation,” he said in the same interview with Inside Hook. This reasoning is behind why Post-Imperial focuses on the Japanese market, where the love for meticulous craftsmanship with a story has a wider base of customers. Seeing as how all of Western menswear looks to Japan for inspiration at one point or another, it’s an approach more brands should take as inspiration.

Nicholas Daley is one of the newer names on the London designer roster but he’s already standing out from the crowd. Using his Scottish and Jamaican heritage as a basis for his designs, he combines this background with a focus on workwear for a wide-ranging brand.

Not many brands combine Japanese craftsmanship alongside Karate and Reggae but this is why Daley stands out, using these disparate influences to create a world wholly his own.

Graduating in 2013, Daley spent time interning at the likes of Nigel Cabourn, Hardy Amies, Aitor Throup and [Paul Smith](https://www.grailed.com/designers/paul-smith as well as working at Dover Street Market before launching his own brand, something that was pushed along with input from Japan.

“It was never my initial plan to start so quickly after university,” he told [Metal Magazine](https://metalmagazine.eu/en/post/interview/nicholas-daley-multiculturalism-from-within-anastasiia-sliusarenko, “but right after graduating from Central Saint Martins I received an email from Beams in Japan saying they were interested in buying my collection, and I accepted their request.” When Beams—one of Japan’s best known retailers—hit you up to ask you for pieces from your brand, it’s clear that you’re on to something. While still at the relative beginning of his career, collaborations with adidas and Fred Perry showcase a future that’s extremely bright.

Martine Rose is one of the most heralded names in modern British menswear and yet still seen as a permanently cult-like figure. For Rose, a designer who pulls from past and present in equal measure, the designer is inspired by her British-Jamaican roots—which includes a strong tie to family. While her sister is considerably older than her, her style—which included Katherine Hamnett and Jean Paul Gauliter—helped give her roots in ‘80s maximalism, blended with the aesthetics of London’s robust Afro-Caribbean community.

Founded in 2007, Martine Rose started out focusing on men’s shirts, blending classic shirting materials with heat seal bonding on oversized pockets. After that, the designer showcased limited collections -- focusing on oversized, wide-fit clothing long before it was back in style on the runway—until she was approached by Balenciaga’s Demna Gvasalia to work as menswear consultant at the house.

Rose’s approach to menswear has always been esoteric, with clothes that play with proportions in a way most British menswear tends to not do. This means cropped hoodies paired with wide leg trousers, asymmetric football shirts and a general feeling of clothes designed to look like a funhouse mirror version of menswear. Like Rose’s upbringing in London, it’s a fusion of British “casuals” culture, “ugly” tailoring from the ’70s and ’80s and the reggae style shaped by London’s large Jamaican population.

While her AC Milan-inspired soccer jersey flips, chopped-up Beermat Towel hoodie (an ode to the quintessentially English pub) or square-toed chain loafers, Rose has created a look all her own. Add in collaborations with Napapijiri and Nike, she’s built a cult-favorite brand that reaches far beyond the runway.

This isn’t an accident. In an interview with Interview magazine, Rose said “I want my clothes to feel slightly undone, a bit unraveled. I don’t want what I do to just be a product. You’re buying an emotion.”

Grace Wales Bonner has always felt like the finished product since launching her eponymous brand in 2014. One of the select “must see” shows, Wales Bonner’s collections have a deftness of touch rarely seen in menswear.

It makes total sense that British Vogue Editor in Chief Edward Enniful called Bonner’s clothes “fully realized.” It’s a phrase that perfectly describes the designer’s collections, louche approaches to menswear that focus on a new way to approach men’s beauty.

Speaking to The Guardian, Wales Bonner said that fashion was merely a good way to express her vision. “I’m big into creating history and research, and fashion is one outcome. What I do in fashion could be considered in a wider context; it could be opened up to expose my thought processes.”

This process would explain why the designer has created everything from exhibitions at London’s Serpentine Gallery to Devotional Sound, a musical event featuring Solange in New York. But Bonner’s clothes are always the center of a particular universe, one informed by her Afro-Caribbean roots. Coming from a mixed-raced family in London is a unique perspective all its own, but what’s interesting about Wales Bonner’s work is that it fuses the street-level style of London’s robust Jamaican population with an almost post-colonial styling; track pants, ’70s-inspired collar shirting and wide knit tops are juxtaposed with regal suiting and delicate pearl accents. Her work—drawing out the feminine side from within the masculine—is both reserved and revelatory.

While challenging gender norms, male silhouette and sexuality within her work on the runway, a recently established adidas collab—inspired by Bob Marley’s famous pictures in the sportswear label—brings her work right to the sidewalk. Given the Three Stripes’ importance to the subcultural scenes that inspire Wales Bonner’s runway collections, it’s a fitting partnership. One of adidas’s best recent collaborations, the collection’s vintage-tinged authenticity feels ripped from a wardrobe rooted in the 1970s “Lovers Rock” heyday.

Founded by artist and designer Josué Thomas, Gallery Dept. was the result of the founder’s lifelong dedication to creation. Raised by two artists, Thomas’s chosen path was somewhat preordained, even if exactly what you call Gallery Dept. has left critics dumbfounded.

This confusion is perhaps best exemplified by The New York Times piece titled “Is It Street Wear or Is It Art?” and the answer was a resounding… “a bit of both?” The core of the brand—the reimagining of forgotten clothing items into something luxury—is likely the reason why people have a difficult time classifying the brand, but once you get past worrying about what to call it, you can enjoy what it is.

Describing the process to Mr Porter, Thomas said that “Taking something that has a lot of life, something that someone looked at as worthless in a sense, and then making it into something that is precious and beautiful to someone that they want to keep forever, that was something that I always liked.”

Much like Wales Bonner, Thomas doesn’t restrict his work to simply designing clothes, creating art installations as well as creating music; Thomas has launched a music imprint called Art That Kills that counts rapper Roc Marciano as one of its artists. As you’d expect from the multi-hyphenate, Art That Kills comes with its own line of products, perfectly designed to tie in together with the wider Gallery Dept. creative universe.

With fans including Virgil Abloh, Quavo and LeBron James, it’s clear that Gallery Dept. is far greater than an art project. Thomas has even had collaborations with the highly-popular Chrome Hearts (and offshoot brand, Lone Ones) hit retailers like Grailed—with a high pricetag to match. To be clear, It’s more than just a luxury-level pricetag that makes Thomas’ work pop though—fans of his designs all stand by the creative’s hands-on approach, which makes his clothing closer to custom works of art than something like a reworked pair of denim. As a designer who represents a new wave of creatives shaping the fashion and cultural landscape of Los Angeles, Gallery Dept. remains a brand to watch.

Darryl Brown’s narrative often gets written up as, “from railroad worker to stylist to brand owner” but that’s something that’s often written for ease instead of accuracy. As Brown himself said in an interview with Fashion Moves Forward, clothing was something he fell into after attending college. “My parents were on me telling me to find a job,” he explained. “I was going to temp agencies working a bunch of different odd 9-5 factory jobs. I ended up getting hired by the railroad in Toledo and worked there for three years.”

His start in styling was serendipitous. Meeting Machine Gun Kelly at a Wiz Khalifa show, Brown’s personal style impressed the rapper/actor so much that he hired him as his stylist. The Machine Gun Kelly connection ultimately led Brown helping out on the Yeezy Season 3 show. That connection led to a position as West’s wardrobe assistant.

After about three years in working with and assisting West, Brown eventually launched Midwest Kids—which caught the attention of LeBron James. The success of the project inevitably helped Brown launch an eponymous label, centered around his own workwear roots.

He described why he felt well positioned to make the jump in [Gear Patrol](gearpatrol.com/style/a34425784/darryl-brown-designer-interview/), explaining, “For me, I sat back and watched workwear become a trend. But none of these designers have ever worked a blue-collar, 9-5 job a day in their life, you know what I'm saying? They don't always hit the mark and connect with people because it’s not them, it’s just a trend that they tried to capitalize on. There's nothing authentic about it and nothing authentic about the message.”

The resulting brand is something Brown describes as "if Dries [Van Noten] and Carhartt had a baby." The range itself showcases these two dualities, with work shirts, hoodies and gym pants made from fleece. The brand is relatively young, but if the early praise is any indication, Brown is situated to score big at the intersection of streetwear, luxury design and run-of-the-mill workwear.

Telfar Clemens’ eponymous brand has been one of the brightest success stories of the last few years. Of course, the jewel in that metaphorical crown would be Telfar’s Shopping Bags—famously coined the “Bushwick Birkin”—which has become both a status symbol, but also an “it bag” that’s simultaneously embodied Telfar’s “Not For You—For Everyone” approach. Even with the brand’s success in handbags however, to focus solely on that would be to overlook what Telfar’s impact has been.

Launching in 2005, the genesis for the brand is Clemens’ youth. Speaking to Gay Times, Clemens recalled, “The clothes I wanted to wear did not exist, especially in the menswear market. I was always attracted to the conceptual advantages that womenswear had over menswear, but growing up I wasn’t allowed by my parents to wear or buy womenswear, so I started to make my own clothes.”

This led to Clemens creating a genderless line years before “gender-fluidity” took off in the wider menswear conversation. With inspirations that blended avant-garde design with the universal appeal of Gap, Telfar was always an interesting facet of the wider NYC fashion scene. Unfortunately, the brand was overlooked by the industry until it won the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund in 2017, receiving the $400,000 grand prize, which allowed the brand to perfect what would become its biggest selling item, the vegan leather Shopping Bag tote.

Telfar’s bag handily exemplifies Clemens’ approach to luxury—namely that it is for everyone. One of the reasons the Shopping Bag sold out is because of its affordability, something in line with the rest of the collection. Recently doubling down on this approach, Telfar recently made its “it bag” available for pre-order, guaranteeing a bag to anyone who wanted one and could afford to buy it. With a reasonable pricetag (for the product category) and a release model that defied fashion’s current obsession with streetwear-like “drops,” it’s an approach that runs counter to other luxury labels with equally lauded handbags.

This approach is a very deliberate one, with Clemens saying in the same Gay Times interview that he wants to become “Michael Kors, but on purpose.” It may sound a little bizarre, but a luxury brand saying that it wants to achieve mass market success is one of the bolder propositions the industry has seen.

Mowalola is one of London’s brightest new brands coming straight from the mind of Lagos-Born, London based Mowalola Ogunlesi. Her debut collection was as fully formed as other standouts Wales Bonner and Nicholas Daley—this time paying homage to Lagosian car aficionados and Nigerian psychedelic ’70s rock via skin-tight silhouettes and shiny leather fabrications.

Ogunlesi soon found favor with several musicians, outfitting Solange, Steve Lacy and Skepta while being stocked at some of the world’s most prestigious stockists like Dover Street Market, Opening Ceremony and SSENSE.

The designer did study at Central Saint Martins but dropped out after a year. She explained why in an interview with SSENSE, saying “They are just a bit too dated. There’s not really a lot of variety, tutor-wise. Everyone’s white, British. Or like white-European.”

Her experience at Central Saint Martins left her with more clarity as to how she wanted to work. “I realized I didn’t want to work for somebody, that I wanted to explore my own vision,” Ogunlesi explained to SSENSE. “I started the MA in 2017 and then left [in 2018]. They weren’t understanding what I was trying to do.”

While she wasn’t connecting with the teachers at Central Saint Martins, she was creating clothing that was willing to be controversial and provocative. Willing to create clashes of texture, color, fabrication and influences—Ogunlesi’s work is part futuristic, part psychedelic and part avant-garde. The only common description one hears when discussing Ogunlesi’s work is that there’s no one out in the game who’s creating quite like she is.

Thinking of that description, it’s no surprise that Kanye West was drawn to Mowalola. At first the designer was brought into the Yeezy fold in a styling capacity, but it wouldn’t remain that way for long—with West and Kim Kardashian wearing Ogunlesi’s designs on Instagram. It wasn’t long before she was brought on board by West to be the design director for his highly-publicized YZY Gap project. While we’ve not heard anything from the Gap-offshoot brand yet, it would be fair to call the range one of the most anticipated releases in some time.

A-Cold-Wall* was founded by Samuel Ross in 2015, created after working alongside Virgil Abloh. The brand has expanded from tees to a wide range of goods. More of a gradual growth than a change in direction, Ross described his approach in an interview with i-D. “It’s come with a bit of time to think about the direction of the brand and what we want to say under the moniker of A-Cold-Wall*. It’s a menswear brand, not an artistic endeavour.”

The shift from early-phase to established is always a difficult one, but A-Cold-Wall*, having won British Emerging Menswear Designer at the 2018 British Fashion Awards and been a finalist for the LVMH prize,. When you look at the somewhat poisoned chalice of the LVMH prize, it was perhaps a blessing in disguise.

Much was made of Ross’s connections to Abloh and Kanye West at the beginning of his career, which did provide the designer with invaluable early experience, saying to i-D, “My first experiences in luxury fashion were interning with Kanye West as a member of DONDA, being on set at Rick Owens’ apartment when Shayne Oliver was shooting their lookbook, and setting up the Off-White showroom at their first presentation in Paris.”

A blend of his own working-class roots and a passion for commercial design, A-Cold-Wall* is part class commentary, part modern art and… well, part modern menswear label. With a string of Nike collaborations and slew of forward-facing utilitarian designs (not to mention a series of industrial design objects under the “Concrete Objects” label), it’s fair to say that Ross has stepped far outside the shadows of his notable predecessors.

Edson Sabajo and Guillaume Schmidt founded Patta back in 2004. Longtime fans of hip-hop, the genesis of the idea was born from a trip to New York. At the time, Schmidt worked in marketing and product management while Sabajo worked at seminal record store Fat Beats. The latter connection ensured the trip to New York was fruitful.

“Due to Fat Beats we had a lot of connections [in New York City],” Schmidt noted in an Office Magazine interview. “We knew some of the guys from Supreme, there were stores like Clientele, those types of shops.” The duo spent most of the early days traversing New York and bringing back rare finds to Amsterdam, only to discover some of their early discoveries were slightly too forward-thinking for the customer.

The brand grew in stature from its copious collaborations, the first one that caught the eye was with Asics, creating a Gel-Lyte III which, at the time, wasn’t a popular model. These collabs led to the launch of a full menswear collection in 2010, which consisted of streetwear staples like sweatsuits, hoodies, hip bags and tees.

The collection slowly grew, building its releases by way of small drops instead of a season schedule. As the brand grew, so did the collaborations. Today Patta counts Stussy, Nike, Jordan and Converse amongst its roster or regular collaborators.

Today, the brand still stocks several different streetwear staples, but is bolstered by its spot in global sneaker culture. Serving as one of Nike’s most-lauded collaboration partners, Patta has been behind some of the rarest sneakers of all time, including the Nike Air Max 1 “Cherrywood”, crafted in collaboration with fellow Dutch artist Parra.

Casely-Hayford is the eponymous brand created by father-son duo Joe and Charlie Casely-Hayford. Launched back in 2009, the brand immediately became one of the standouts of the London schedule. With Charlie still relatively young at the time, the brand’s status mostly came from Joe Casely-Hayford’s standing as a designer. Joe, who founded his solo brand back in 1984, had gone on to style the likes of U2 before becoming creative director of Gieves & Hawkes in 2005.

Bringing his son Charlie (just 22 at the time) in to help relaunch the brand in 2009, the label quickly emerged as a blend of Joe’s technical, Savile Row tailoring traditions with a new, sportswear-meets-sartorial styling that blurred aesthetic boundaries. With early stockists including Dover Street Market, the London label’s unique POV on British tailoring inevitably caught on. That modernity and contemporary focus isn’t just talk; Casely-Hayford’s interest in tackling topics like sustainability in fashion go as far back as Joe’s original brand, creating garments out of upcycled military surplus.

The foundations of the brand were shaken in 2019, when Joe Casely-Hayford passed away at the age of 62, leaving the brand at a crossroads. Eventually, Charlie decided to carry on the label in honor of his late father. Maintaining the label’s blend of distinctly British tailoring with styling for the present-day, Charlie has inherited carried on in the tradition of his late father, inheriting the mantle as one of the most promising designers in contemporary British fashion. When asked about the brand, he said to Marylebone Journal, “I feel more like a torchbearer, carrying on this family legacy to the next generation. It’s certainly not a lonely journey.”