Independent Fashion Labels With Cult Followings

The quilt jacket is the piece Bode fans save up for. Emily Adams Bode Aujla launched the New York label in 2016 with garments made entirely from antique textiles, and the patchwork jackets, many made from or modeled on antique quilts, typically carry four-figure prices at full retail. Shirts and smaller pieces are the gentler way in. The one-of-a-kind sections are, by definition, single pieces, so a missed size rarely comes back. Buy from the label's own stores in New York, Los Angeles, Paris and Tokyo, or its website. Back-to-back CFDA Menswear Designer of the Year awards in 2021 and 2022 show the craft has substance behind the following.

For anyone who cares how a garment is made, Story mfg. is the craft benchmark here. Saeed and Katy Al-Rubeyi started the unisex label in Brighton more than a decade ago, and its clothes lean on hand weaving, natural dyes and dense embroidery, finished with deliberately wonky details borrowed from vintage Americana and British workwear. The chunky clover-motif knits are the pieces fans hunt for. Prices run from under £100 for tees to about £600 for the heaviest pieces, so the handwork comes in well below Bode's quilt-jacket prices. Buy from the label's own site, which ships internationally, or its studio and shop in Hackney, east London.

Paloma Wool is the label to try if your style runs to soft, sculptural layers and a little strangeness. Paloma Lanna founded it in Barcelona in 2014 and still directs it, and its pull comes from sleek cuts, balloon-shaped dresses and skirts, and easy layers worn over comfortable pants. Rosalía and Lily-Rose Depp have both been spotted in it. Shoppers in the US can try pieces on at the stores on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles and Broome Street in New York, with others in Barcelona, Paris and London, or order from the label's site and SSENSE.

Few small labels can claim to have started a trend, but Sandy Liang's bows, Peter Pan collars and ballet details are everywhere now. The New York designer founded her label in 2014, drawing on girlhood nostalgia and the grandmothers of Chinatown, and Harper's Bazaar once compared its following to Supreme's. The Mary Jane flats, first released in 2022 as a cross between a Mary Jane and a pointe shoe, are the signature buy; the first run of 1,200 pairs sold out in two days. Bow hair clips are a smaller way into the look. Shop the Orchard Street flagship on the Lower East Side or the label's own site; the October 2025 Gap collaboration brought a cheaper, wider-reaching version of the style, but the mainline is where the detail lives.

Collina Strada is the loudest, most joyful label here, and its fans dress like a community rather than a customer base. Hillary Taymour started it around 2008 while living in Los Angeles, and the New York label now mixes clashing prints, deadstock fabrics and materials such as Rose Sylk, a fiber made from rose bush waste, with a frank climate message. Expect tees from about $160 and pants around $400 to $500; jewelry is the easiest entry at roughly $125 to $150. The label's own site offers free US shipping over $500, and SSENSE carries it too. Buy for the print and the attitude: this is clothing that wants to be seen, so it suits a wardrobe with room for a statement.

Eckhaus Latta suits the shopper who wants clothes that sit closer to art than to trend. Mike Eckhaus, who studied sculpture, and Zoe Latta, who studied textiles and once designed knits for Opening Ceremony, met at the Rhode Island School of Design and founded the label in 2011. Knitwear is the reason to go: textured, oddly proportioned pieces that look handmade because the thinking behind them is. The art world takes it seriously too. Its 2018 show Possessed at the Whitney was the museum's first fashion-related exhibition in 21 years. Try things on at the label's own stores in Los Angeles and New York, since the cuts are unconventional and can surprise you on the body.

Her eponymous London label If one dress could stand for a label, it is Molly Goddard's hand-smocked tulle. The label began almost by accident at a party she co-hosted during London Fashion Week in September 2014, with friends modeling her designs, and Dover Street Market placed an order soon after. Rihanna has worn her on red carpets since 2016, and Villanelle's pink tulle dress in Killing Eve came from Goddard's first runway collection. The pictured Daria dress from 2019 takes more than 60 meters of nylon tulle, which shows what the showpieces involve and why they cost what they do. Buy from the label's own site, which is based in London and prices in pounds by default.

Her New York label, Batsheva Batsheva is the prairie dress done with a wink. Batsheva Hay, formerly a lawyer at a Manhattan firm, had a favorite vintage Laura Ashley dress remade in 2016 and started her label that same year. The high necks, stiff collars and tiered skirts are modest on paper and slightly subversive in practice, which is exactly what her fans like. A dress is the obvious first buy, and the label makes the case that one needs no accessories at all. Since 2024 there has been a proper home for trying them on: the first Batsheva store, at 166 Elizabeth Street in Manhattan. The label has since stretched into a collaboration with Anna Sui and even furniture, but the dresses remain the reason to come.

Big Bud Press is the friendliest entry here: cheerful, mostly unisex, size-inclusive and made in Los Angeles. Lacey Micallef started it in 2015 as an online shop selling enamel pins, and with co-owner Philip Seastrom grew it into a full clothing line, all of it made domestically in LA. The cotton twill jumpsuit is the piece that built the following, sold in a long run of solid colors plus occasional prints, with petite cuts alongside the standard fit. At around $200 for a solid color it costs a fraction of most labels on this list, which makes it the easiest first buy. Shop the website or the brand's stores in California, New York City and Chicago.

Mirror Palais is the one where the hype has sometimes run ahead of the workroom, so buy with patience. Marcelo Gaia, a Queens-born former stylist, launched the New York label in 2019, and its barely-there Fairy Dress spread so widely on social media that, in his words, it changed their lives. Designs go online first and are produced in quantities set by the orders received. That model has stumbled: an early batch of dresses was cut entirely wrong, leaving some customers waiting months and others refunded. Most dresses cost three figures and some cost four, so check the shipping estimate before paying. To see the fabric first, book an appointment at the Manhattan showroom.