The New Girls' Club

How a creative new wave of female designers is remaking menswear—and not just for men.

- Alison S. Cohn.

With its tweeds, ties, pocket squares, and often arcane rules about everything from lapel shapes to the appropriate weight for shirt fabric, the world of menswear has been slow to embrace change. It wasn’t until 2017 that Emily Adams Bode became the first female designer to present a menswear collection at New York Fashion Week. She adhered to parts of the conventional male dress code while eschewing its fussiness, presenting tailored options made from upcycled quilts and finished with intricate embroideries that infused workwear silhouettes with feminine handicraft traditions. Although the collection got picked up by a number of top retailers, Bode initially found its reception by certain establishment gatekeepers less than welcoming. “There was this group of boys who went to Pitti together,” she recalls, referring to Pitti Uomo, the Florence trade show that doubles as a street‐style showcase for a coterie of preening menswear influencers. “Some of these guys would come into my showroom and say, ‘You know, Emily, this kind of shirting will never sell.’ ”