Who’s on the CFDA 2025 list: independent names, global voices

Every November, New York gathers the industry in the halls of the American Museum of Natural History — for the CFDA Fashion Awards ceremony.

It’s not just a glamorous night. It’s a moment when the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) honors those who are shaping fashion today.

Yes, there will be the well-known names on stage. But there are also independent designers, those who move fashion forward with ideas, not numbers — without big budgets.

HONORS — those who inspire a generation

CFDA honors him not just for his career, but for his ability to remain true to the profession when everything around moves too fast.

Ralph Rucci

Honor: Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award

Ralph Rucci is a living legend of American couture. His Ralph Rucci Collection is silence distilled into a line, discipline of form elevated to philosophy.

There is no scream or rush in his clothing — only respect for craftsmanship that breathes through the fabric.

NOMINEES — those who shape the now

Daniella Kallmeyer

Nomination: American Womenswear Designer of the Year

Look at her jackets — there’s strength without stiffness. Soft power dressing you can breathe in. Kallmeyer builds her brand on the principles of slow fashion: local production, honest fabrics, transparency.

CFDA nominated her for reimagining power dressing — without pomp, but with confidence that speaks quieter yet deeper.

Rachel Scott — Diotima

Nomination: American Womenswear Designer of the Year

Rachel Scott, founder of Diotima, blends the craft and culture of Jamaica and Brooklyn. Crochet tops, ceramic jewelry — craftsmanship turned into a manifesto of identity.

CFDA recognizes Scott for reinterpreting craft as a form of self-expression. Her clothes are not about nostalgia, but about confident presence.

Raul Lopez — Luar

Nomination: American Accessory Designer of the Year

Raul knows how to merge street and sophistication, risk and success. His brand, Luar, is style as a dialogue between street and refinement.

His cult Ana bags have already become a generational symbol: minimalism with a hint of irony.

CFDA nominates him for creative boldness that became commercially successful — an alchemy achieved by very few.

EMERGING DESIGNERS — those who speak of the future

Ashlynn Park — ASHLYN

Winner of Emerging Designer of the Year Award

Ashlynn is a designer who makes minimalism personal again. A protégé of Raf Simons, she creates clothing with an internal balance between strictness and warmth.

Her collections are about body, movement, and respect for simplicity.

CFDA nominated her for honesty of form — for showing that fashion can be quiet and still powerful.

Julian Louie — Aubero

Nomination: Emerging Designer of the Year

Julian Louie is a designer who works like a poet. His brand, Aubero, is built on a sense of imperfection — on the idea that asymmetry is life.

He plays with textures and volumes, creating silhouettes that seem to move even in stillness.

CFDA sees in him a new voice of American fashion, where vulnerability becomes style.

Bernard James — Bernard James Jewelry

Nomination: Emerging Designer of the Year

A jeweler from Brooklyn whose pieces resemble family heirlooms. Bernard creates jewelry like letters — about love, loss, memory.

He works with emotion through metal, and that’s rare.

CFDA nominated him for the ability to turn intimacy into form.

Colleen Allen — Colleen Allen

Nomination: Emerging Designer of the Year

Colleen is an artist who treats the body as a canvas. Her pieces seem to come from the future: soft armor, transparent shells, drapery that lives its own life.

She’s nominated for her bold exploration of form and body — for speaking fashion’s language of intuition.

Taylor Thompson — 5000

Nomination: Emerging Designer of the Year

5000 is a laboratory of new sensitivity where the digital and the handmade don’t argue but dance.

Thompson creates clothes that speak from the future, not about it.

CFDA nominates Thompson for the daring fusion of technology, craft, and emotion — a rare balance that makes 5000 not a startup but a true manifesto of new fashion.

And we congratulate all the winners and nominees.

CFDA 2025 is not about glamour, but about boundaries being shifted. About how fashion becomes personal again.

They don’t play by the rules — they write new ones.

Localloo wants to say thank you for making fashion alive, honest, imperfect — real again.

Each of them is not just a designer. They are a voice. An experience. A story told through fabric, form, and light.

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