Designers Who Are Slowly But Steadily Changing The Fashion Game

From bringing sexy back to breaking down gender boundaries, Jeffrey Yan spotlights the designers to know now rising stars are slowly but steadily changing the fashion game.

- Jeffrey Yan

The fashion agenda today is being set by a new generation of stars who are refreshing and reinventing their respective corners of the industry. In womenswear, there is Nensi Dojaka, last year's LVMH Prize winner, who is redefining what sexy looks like.

Bianca Saunders, the 2021 recipient of the ANDAM Fashion Award, also casts a female gaze but on menswear-where she has created a distinctive look that is both off-kilter and graceful. And then there is Harris Reed, the non-binary designer pushing gender fluidity to its most expressive, extravagant heights with his demi-couture creations.

Dojaka is currently the darling of the industry; her work beloved not just by the establishment (as evidenced by her LVMH Prize triumph), but also by some of the most photographed women in the world. Trendsetters such as Rihanna, Bella Hadid, Dua Lipa and Emily Ratajkowski have all been spotted in Dojaka's signature lingerie-inspired looks-and for good reason. Soft but strong, sexy yet never trashy, the designer's aesthetic dovetails perfectly with our current cultural moment-one in which sex has returned to the forefront of fashion and the pent-up demand for party dressing is close to boiling point.