The 6 Brands to Watch at New York Fashion Week Fall 2026

Every season, the Council of Fashion Designers of America takes a risk on a handful of brands, letting them show for the first time on the official New York Fashion Week calendar. But many of those making their debut with the CFDA for fall 2026 aren’t technically new. J. Press, for example, is 124 years old. Menyelek Rose of Menyelek has basically been staging two shows a year since 2017, and Andrew Curwen has dressed Lady Gaga. Whether you’ve designed dozens of collections or just one, dressed U.S. Presidents or the party girls of Essex, it’s still a big deal when a designer gets the golden ticket: a spot on the schedule.

Of those being brought to the big leagues this season, six names in particular have us willing to brave the New York cold for a peek at their new collections. In addition to J. Press—now under the creative direction of Rowing Blazers’s founder, Jack Carlson—Menyelek, and Andrew Curwen, there’s Caroline Zimbalist and her gummy-esque wearable sculptures, Mel Usine, and Pipenco Lorena of Pipenco, who caught our eye last season with a dress made of dried lemons. Each artist has a range of experience—and disparate approaches to design. Carlson bears a century-long legacy to uphold (and bosses to impress) while Zimbalist has to make sure her kitchen is scrubbed clean before she starts forming her creations on a tiny apartment stove. But this is what makes New York such an exhilarating fashion capital, and the fall 2026 season one to anticipate. Below, familiarize yourself with the six designers we’ve dubbed Ones to Watch, ahead of their NYFW presentations and shows.

J. Press

Again, J. Press is hardly a new brand. Founded in 1902 on the Yale University campus by Jacobi Press, J. Press has over a century of experience clothing some of the most prominent men in U.S. history. Their clientele list reads like an AP textbook: John F. Kennedy, Miles Davis, Bill Clinton. Jack Carlson recalls the signed client photos that lined the brand’s now-closed Cambridge store, the location where he purchased his first sports coats and dress ties as a kid growing up in Boston. Carlson followed a life path not unlike those in the framed pictures he admired back in the old J. Press store. He attended Georgetown University, where he was captain of the rowing team, and later headed off to the University of Oxford on an Allbritton Scholarship. In 2017, he founded Rowing Blazers, which combined Ivy-adjacent prep with streetwear marketing tactics. He became known for his collaborations, special editions, and pop-ups. In 2024, he left Rowing Blazers, moving a year later to J. Press, where he is president and creative director.

There are a few (mostly superficial) things Rowing Blazers and J. Press have in common. On the surface, they’re both brands based within the world of East Coast preppiness, simultaneously pushing forth and pulling from a culture of Ivy League homogeneity and nostalgic Americana. Carlson, though, doesn’t see it that way.

“Rowing Blazers was an extension of myself and my personal interests,” he explains. “It didn’t need to make sense to anybody else as long as it made sense to me.” Again, the creative director pushes back on the notion that prep is too old-fashioned, or is irrelevant within the modern fashion landscape. And prep is indeed having a moment: Jonathan Anderson’s Dior and Michael Rider’s Celine both tapped prep aesthetics with red chinos and argyle sweaters. J. Crew’s doors are swinging more than they have in a decade, and back in September, the 2025 U.S. Open cap was the status symbol in NYC. “There’s a huge sense of nostalgia that preppy and Ivy style speaks to,” Carlson says of the look’s recent resurgence. “You see it on the runway, reflected in brands that don’t necessarily have it in their DNA.” J. Press is situated perfectly for the shift. “Regardless of your personal style, there’s a respect for what is authentic, and J. Press has that in spades.”

J. Press made some waves in September when Carlson debuted for the brand with its first-ever fashion show. Held at the Explorer’s Club on the Upper East Side, JFK Jr. lookalikes modeled blazers, ties, and the brand’s best-selling Shaggy Dog sweaters. This time around, Carlson hopes to continue taking advantage of fashion’s embrace of coastal charm. He wants to bring the brand into 2026 without turning his back on its impressive history—which brings us to spring 2026 (J. Press shows in season). The new collection is at least partly inspired by the menswear bible Take Ivy, a 1965 photography book created by three Japanese men who traveled to America’s famed college campuses to document the true “Ivy Style,” a look that was exploding in Japan at the time. Not only is J. Press featured heavily among the photographs, but in 1986, Japanese company Onward Holdings purchased J. Press and has owned it ever since.

“I’ve basically known since the first day I joined J. Press that I wanted to get in touch with the Take Ivy publishers,” Carlson says. Along with the collection, which will pay homage to J. Press collegiate roots as well as their Japanese ownership, Carlson will present a special edition of the book created in tandem with the publishers. How very Rowing Blazers.

Mel Usine

Mel Usine is not a person. You might assume she’s some hot New York designer who burst onto the scene last season with her debut, off-calendar collection. You would be half right. Mel Usine is a disruptor in the N.Y. fashion world, but the woman you’re commending is a mythical wood nymph who inspired the real person behind the brand: Stephen Biga.

Biga, a 34-year-old New Jersey native, launched Mel Usine in 2024 and presented his first collection for his brand during the spring 2026 season. Now, he is returning with some support from the CFDA.

While almost every other brand on this list boasts the name of its creator, Biga eschewed the opportunity to dedicate his creative child to himself. “I always wanted it to be about the clothing and the work,” he tells W a few weeks before his fall 2026 show. Instead, he found a muse in French mythology. The water nymph from which the brand borrows its name is actually called Melusine, but a typo led to the enigmatic moniker.

To understand Biga, it helps to look at his creative rearing, which began with a dual degree in fashion and culture and media studies at the Parsons School of Design and The New School. “That opened the door to how I approach the fashion design process,” he says. “It became more of an intellectual exercise for me.” From there, Biga worked for Rodarte, Proenza Schouler, and Gabriela Hearst.

He took bits from each gig: “When I was at Rodarte, it was more about this feeling and this whimsy; Proenza was about inspirational reference points as they relate to art; and then at Gabriela, it really became about technique.”

Like its name and the story which initially inspired Biga, Mel Usine is romantic. It’s steeped in history, with a touch of magic. Biga describes his designs as “an embrace of femininity, but in a way that doesn’t feel fragile.” He does walk the line, though. While Biga may consider “fragility” a pejorative, he employed it beautifully in his debut, where silk, chiffon, and organza simultaneously covered and revealed the models’ bodies. Italian lace was used to create the most delicate effect, but when placed on the wearer, it transformed into an elegant, reworked chainmail. Peasant blouses were finished with silk ribbons and dresses with bunches of coque feathers. There was an inescapable medieval bend to these first designs (a side effect of finding inspiration in Melusine, which dates back to the end of that era). Biga believes in “narrative fashion” and building a world with his clothes. Last season, he brought the inspirational Melusine story to life. For fall 2026, Biga is returning to centuries-old art, this time, two specific pieces: A set of tapestries called The Lady and the Unicorn from Musée de Cluny in Paris, and a Jules Coutan sculpture titled La Porteuse de Pain at Musée des Beaux Arts.

“I’m looking at these and recontextualizing them for the modern day,” he says. “There’s a fine line between looking towards historical dressing and just regurgitating it. At the end of the day, I’m not making costumes for the Met.”

Pipenco

Lorena Pipenco technically started her brand when she was just a teenager. Well, at least she started a version of it—a custom dress shop out of her house in Essex, where she would make clothes for the girls in town with help from her mom and grandma. “Essex is like the New Jersey of London,” the 25-year-old tells W. “No matter your background or how much money you had, everyone would find a way to get a new custom look for every party and outing.” Lorena made pieces for the “little town hoes,” as she calls them with affection. “The clothes were wacky, but we were able to see clients and do fittings in our home. It was a fun experience.”

With Pipenco, Lorena caters to a slightly different clientele. But depending on who you ask, the designs could still be described as “wacky.” Lorena finds inspiration in her family’s Romanian heritage, as well as the Romanian films she watched growing up. Her collections explore the tension between youth and adulthood, as well as the transfer of heritage through generations. “It’s a whimsical but dark tension,” she says. Her designs often embrace childlike elements, enhanced and twisted to meet a modern woman’s wardrobe needs. A dress resembles a sweater you might have stolen from your mom’s closet, belted and worn as a dress with exaggerated ruffle sleeves and a stretched-out neck. Her more straightforward silhouettes are just as cofounding, like a sleek halterneck dress rendered completely in dried lemon slices—over 900, to be exact. “My whole apartment smelled of lemons,” she recalls with a laugh. “We were all just having lemonade, making lemon cocktails, and drinking lemon tea.”

And then, of course, there are her hats, the pieces that have become Lorena’s signature. Ludicrously capacious is an understatement—these toppers, created from nylon yarn, are comically large. They take the shape of tall bowlers or geometric caps, brightly colored to make them even more eye-catching. They’re not for the faint of fashion heart, but they’ve proven to be a favorite, specifically among the music scene. Lauryn Hill has worn many versions of the design while performing on stage, with Raye recently donning one for an editorial.

This season, Lorena is heading to a slightly more vulnerable place. “I’m talking more about myself,” she says. Recently, Lorena went to a Romanian festival in New Jersey (not to be confused with Essex), where she happened upon a display of traditional costumes. “These traditional Romanian textiles told the story of a woman’s love life,” Lorena says. She is now telling the story of her love life through clothes. “I feel a bit exposed,” she admits. “But at the same time, I’m at a stage where I’ve grown with the brand, and I’ve spoken about so many different things. I want to talk about myself for once.”

Andrew Curwen

Andrew Curwen was inspired to start his own brand after watching John Galliano’s final show for Maison Margiela in 2024. Curwen describes himself as raised on Gods and Kings, and the era when Galliano and Alexander McQueen ruled fashion. So it had been a while since a collection affected Curwen like that last Margiela outing. “I was worried that I was becoming some jaded, bitter queen who wasn’t inspired by fashion anymore,” he tells W. But that collection brought him back into the fold and pushed him to finally go out on his own. “I realized the hunger was still there.”

Curwen started small last year with an 11-piece collection. His debut was a culmination of years of work and observation, both while taking on shifts at Beacon’s Closet and working for two of his Parsons contemporaries and fellow young designers, Jane Wade and Elena Velez. He began that show with a tiered ruffled skirt of cotton voile and a sheer corseted top featuring his family crest, a piece he believes encapsulates his brand perfectly. Curwen was born in Lake Placid, New York, but he moved around quite a bit thanks to his dad’s work in the military. When conceptualizing his collection, Curwen dove into his family history in an attempt to contextualize his place in the world. Then he found the crest. “I never felt like I had a home,” he says. “The research helped me place my roots.”

The Galliano and McQueen inspiration can be seen in Curwen’s work, but that’s not to say the designer is knocking off his idols. In fact, the influence manifests itself mostly in Curwen’s view of fashion. He appreciates beauty for beauty’s sake, calling it “essential for our cognitive function.” He enjoys “looking at how the turn of the century imagined the future,” he says. “It’s a beautiful thing to think about the optimism of a time before us.”

Curwen’s clothes, though, don’t necessarily feel optimistic; there is a darkness lurking below his designs, most evident in his color palette of black, gray, and oxblood red. Perhaps that’s what drew Lady Gaga to the designer, as the singer was seen wearing an Andrew Curwen last year. And don’t expect him to lighten up anytime soon. Curwen plans to go even darker for fall 2026. “We’re going more extreme,” he promises. “It’s a little tense.” In preparation, Curwen dove into the world of Edgar Allen Poe. “We’re headed a little bit mournful, but also upping the aggression ante.”

Menyelek

Menyelek Rose has never needed the support from the forces that be (though he won’t say no to a bit of help). The 28-year-old designer is making his debut on the CFDA calendar with his namesake brand for fall 2026, but this is hardly his first show. In fact, he’s basically been staging two a year since 2017.

Raised in Baltimore, Rose’s innate creativity found an outlet when he discovered the medium of fashion design. So, he did what kids of his generation do: he took to YouTube. “I learned from trial and error,” Rose recalls. Completely self-taught, Rose spent one semester at community college before dropping out to move to New York. “I said, ‘You know what, I’m just going to do it.” And to his credit, he did.

Of course, things have changed since then. The Menyelek of yore was exemplified by a signature patchwork treatment; Rose would cut up old crochet blankets and t-shirts and transform them into mock-neck sweaters and asymmetric dresses. “The Menyelek motto has always been about using what’s around you to create beauty,” Rose says.

Nine years in, those patchwork tops are still a hallmark of Menyelek, and crochet remains (literally) woven into the brand’s DNA. In many ways, Menyelek is a love letter to Rose’s grandma, who used to crochet blankets for him and his sister. “Anytime you see yarn hanging from a piece, it’s me invoking her name.” In general, however, the collection isn’t about a grandmother, but a father. Rose breaks down the fictional tale that inspired him, one of a Victorian warlord dad and his illegitimate daughter. “It’s about longing for the attention of the people you love,” Rose says, admitting the narrative is loosely based on the relationship between his own brother and father. “They don’t talk,” he says. “I know my brother wants to connect with my dad, but it’s been so long that he doesn't.”

Rose thinks many will relate to this story. And if not, he hopes they will get lost in the spectacle of it all. “Nowadays, everybody is just trying to sell clothing, which is important, but you also want to give people a fantasy.”

Caroline Zimbalist

Growing up, Caroline Zimbalist was a selective mute. She had no trouble speaking in her Long Island home, but at school, she required an aide and a tablet to communicate with her teachers and peers. “When I wanted to speak, I would, and when I didn’t want to, I just didn’t,” she says. Now, at the age of 28, Zimbalist has something she’d like to share loudly. For the past few years, the designer has been constructing sculptures out of biomaterials, forming them into vases (which she refers to as “vessels”) and garments for everyday wear. Ever since her days at Parsons School of Design, she’s been toeing the line of fine art and fashion design, a practice that has culminated in the collection she will show at New York Fashion Week this season.

Those engaging with Zimbalist’s designs for the first time may struggle to contextualize them. Some of her Parsons professors, she says, failed to understand her work, questioning its scalability. But those were concerns Zimbalist happily ignored. (“I wasn’t thinking of functionality then,” she adds. “It was more about the beauty of the actual textile.”) Luckily, one of her teachers guided her in the direction of biomaterial, a substance created from natural ingredients and often used as a plastic alternative. Zimbalist immediately fell in love with the process of making and manipulating the stuff, and her kitchen turned into a pseudoscience lab as she perfected her recipe. Soon, she was creating the first of her vessels. When she added vegetable glycerin to the equation, it became a rubber-like consistency, allowing her to sculpt the result into the shape of wearable garments. She began collaborating with brands, including PH5 and Elena Velez, and in 2022, she started her own line.

Zimbalist describes her brand as containing “an illustrative sense of play. Everybody says the pieces look like Fruit Roll Ups,” she says with a laugh. “But I never want it to look crafty.” To avoid this, Zimbalist keeps away from primary colors, preferring greens and pinks.

After combining the ingredients and dyeing the batches, Zimbalist pours the concoction onto a sheet or into a mold. “It does what it wants to do,” she says. “I’ll have the color palette and shape in mind, but it can be very chaotic.” It’s a one-of-a-kind process that results in one-of-a-kind looks. “If anything, it adds to the whole story of the brand, which is inspired by the rapidly changing world,” the designer says.

Zimbalist understands if her pieces are “too flamboyant” for some people, but there’s clearly a market for them. Most notably, Chappell Roan wore one of her designs when visiting The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon in 2024. Of course, not everyone has the fashion guts of Roan, and Zimbalist is hoping this new collection will provide more options. She’s using more fabric than ever before (100 percent cotton, because the biomaterial only adheres to natural fibers), while the biomaterial acts as hardware and embellishment. “You could wear this stuff to the bodega,” Zimbalist promises.