Stories by

Phoebe Gates

698 stories

Marlies Grace Bags and Dresses

Marlies Grace Bags and Dresses

Verena Martin founded Marlies Grace around 2022 and named the label after her late mother, Marlies, whose own parents ran a fashion store in Soest, Germany. Martin built a point of view on nostalgia and European reference points rather than any single trend cycle.

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Sonia And Maurice Mosseri: Founders of Still Here Denim

Sonia And Maurice Mosseri: Founders of Still Here Denim

Sonia and Maurice Mosseri, high school sweethearts from Brooklyn, started Still Here in 2018 after Sonia began hand-painting vintage denim inspired by her father's patched-up childhood Levi's. They funded the first production run with their wedding gift money and built the label into an eight-figure business without outside investors, all on the idea that a well-worn pair of jeans is basically an heirloom.

DES_PHEMMES Dresses: Milan Label Built on Draped Silhouettes

DES_PHEMMES Dresses: Milan Label Built on Draped Silhouettes

Salvo Rizza founded DES_PHEMMES in Milan in 2019, after years spent inside Giambattista Valli's Paris ateliers working his way up to studio coordinator. The label runs his couture training through a deliberately raw, nineties-leaning lens, all Juergen Teller grain and archival Prada attitude rather than red-carpet polish.

Mason & Books: Jamie Books' 14K Gold and Diamond Jewelry

Mason & Books: Jamie Books' 14K Gold and Diamond Jewelry

Mason & Books is a New York jewelry label that designer Jamie Books launched in 2021 after roughly fifteen years in luxury accessories. I look at the 14K gold, diamond and pearl pieces, where bows and bugs inspired by her kids sit beside the craft.

NeverNoT Jewelry

NeverNoT Jewelry

NeverNoT was founded in 2018 in London by Georgian-born friends Nina Dzhokhadze, who had worked in sales and business development at Burberry and Stephen Webster, and Natia Chkhartishvili, a stylist who had previously run her own accessories brand. The specific thing that makes the label recognizable is its mix of large, precious stones with bold enamel and neon color, built to make fine jewelry feel like an everyday object rather than a special occasion one.

KHEPRI Jewelry

KHEPRI Jewelry

Reema Chopra founded Khepri Jewels in New York in 2023 after leaving a career that ran from private banking at CIBC to years of diamond wholesaling and gemstone sourcing on the city's diamond district, and getting GIA-certified as a gemologist along the way. The brand is named for the ancient Egyptian sun god of rebirth, and that idea is literal in its origin story: Chopra's first meaningful piece came from repurposing a friend's engagement ring into a necklace after a divorce.

Sheryl Lowe Jewelry

Sheryl Lowe Jewelry

Sheryl Lowe started making jewelry as a teenager in 1970s Southern California, then spent decades working as a Hollywood makeup artist on more than thirty films before turning her hobby into a real business after a 2006 favor for California First Lady Maria Shriver. She made fifty five beaded, pave diamond necklaces for a women's conference gift bag, the orders that followed pushed her out of her dining room and into an actual studio, and she still hand-selects gemstones and beads collected on her own travels.

Sorellina Jewelry

Sorellina Jewelry

Sisters Nicole and Kim Carosella, both New York natives, launched Sorellina in the early 2010s, starting with pieces made by melting down and resetting stones from their mother's old jewelry. Nicole trained in jewelry fabrication at FIT while Kim handled the business side, and the label's name, Italian for younger sister, nods to their own family shorthand as much as their heritage.

Joie DiGiovanni Jewelry

Joie DiGiovanni Jewelry

Joie DiGiovanni, a Philadelphia native, started designing jewelry in the early 2010s while recovering from a serious car accident that left her with several autoimmune conditions. Her signature is baroque South Sea and Tahitian pearls set against leather and diamonds, a pairing she traces back to how a pearl itself forms, as an irritant transformed into something beautiful.

Third Form Dresses and Knitwear

Third Form Dresses and Knitwear

Merryn Kelly, a graduate of Sydney TAFE's fashion design program, founded Third Form in 2014 after working in design roles at Zimmermann, Shakuhachi and Lee Jeans. The label built its name on a contemporary, slightly edgy take on Australian womenswear, enough to earn a Vogue Australia nod for its cult following and a spot on Forbes' list of new Australian fashion names.

Bea Bongiasca Jewelry

Bea Bongiasca Jewelry

Bea Bongiasca launched her eponymous jewelry line in Milan in 2013, straight out of Central Saint Martins, debuting her first collection at 10 Corso Como the following year. The label is built on candy colored enamel wrapped around gemstones, a playful, sculptural language that treats fine jewelry like it should not take itself too seriously.

Pamela Zamore Jewelry

Pamela Zamore Jewelry

Pamela Zamore spent seventeen years running her own interior design firm in Boston before shifting into jewelry around 2014, first working in silver before moving the collection to 18 karat gold around 2023. Her designs pull from a lifelong collection of 1970s gold jewelry, antiques and decorative arts, translated into pieces with heavy texture and dimension rather than smooth, polished surfaces.

VRAI Jewelry

VRAI Jewelry

Vanessa Stofenmacher and Chelsea Nicholson founded the label in Los Angeles in 2014 as Vrai & Oro, selling made-to-order recycled-gold jewelry before the diamond producer Diamond Foundry acquired the business and shortened the name to VRAI in 2019. Every stone the house sets now comes from its own zero-emission foundry in Wenatchee, Washington, which produced what the company describes as the world's first carbon-neutral certified lab-grown diamond in 2017.

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Déhanche

Déhanche

Erin Webb, a California native who had already spent fourteen years in Paris and co-founded the outerwear label Nour Hammour, launched Déhanche in March 2022 with four belt styles. The name is French for the asymmetrical hip tilt seen in ancient Greek statues, and Webb designs each buckle like a piece of jewelry, cast-moulded rather than stamped, made in Italy to a specification she spent a year perfecting.

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Swedish Stockings Tights: Recycled, Long-Lasting Basics

Swedish Stockings Tights: Recycled, Long-Lasting Basics

Linn Frisinger and Nadja Forsberg founded Swedish Stockings in Stockholm in 2013, after Frisinger watched a documentary on planned obsolescence that used disposable tights as its example. The brand makes hosiery from recycled nylon in a solar-powered factory in Italy and runs a take-back program that grinds old tights, any brand, into material for furniture.

Matteau: The Sisters Behind the Australian Label

Matteau: The Sisters Behind the Australian Label

Matteau is an Australian label launched in 2015 by sisters Ilona Hamer and Peta Heinsen. I go through its dresses, tops and shirting, and trousers and shorts.

Sophie Thoerner and Vice Versa: The Jewelry Brand She Co-Founded

Sophie Thoerner and Vice Versa: The Jewelry Brand She Co-Founded

Sophie Thoerner co-founded Vice Versa with Hannah Traulsen, a Barnard alum with a background in sourcing and production. Thoerner is a Savannah College of Art and Design jewelry graduate, and I go through the 14K yellow gold pieces.

SHAY Jewelry: Link Bracelets to Gold and Diamond Pieces

SHAY Jewelry: Link Bracelets to Gold and Diamond Pieces

SHAY jewelry started as a woven chain link bracelet that Tanaz Shayan made for herself in high school. I follow it from costume jewelry into 18K yellow gold and diamond rings, earrings and necklaces.

Emm Kuo Bags: Clutches and Handbags by a Parsons Trained Designer

Emm Kuo Bags: Clutches and Handbags by a Parsons Trained Designer

Emm Kuo is the handbag and accessories label of Emmaline Kuo Ranzman, a Parsons trained designer who grew up between Taipei, Hawaii, New York and Hong Kong before launching her own line in New York after working for Catherine Malandrino and Stephen Burrows. The specific thing that makes it hers is the global material sourcing, with evening bags handmade in studios in the Philippines under sustainability practices like natural dyeing and water conservation.

Jade Ruzzo Jewelry

Jade Ruzzo Jewelry

Jade Ruzzo launched her eponymous fine jewelry line in New York in 2022, after a decade working at Conde Nast titles and as a personal stylist. The specific thing that drives the collection is family: pieces are named for and inspired by her late father Vic, a drummer, and her daughter Gloria, born in 2019, with the Percussion collection built directly around his cymbals and drum motifs.

Rene Barnes Jewelry

Rene Barnes Jewelry

Rene Barnes launched her eponymous fine jewelry line in May 2022, working out of Charleston, South Carolina, with pieces cast in New York City. Every design starts with Barnes hand-sculpting wax herself before it goes through lost-wax casting, so the resulting pieces keep a slightly irregular, hand-carved quality rather than a machine-perfect finish.

Mindi Mond: New York Fine Jewelry Founded in 2009

Mindi Mond: New York Fine Jewelry Founded in 2009

Mindi Mond founded her eponymous fine jewelry line in New York in 2009, after a career as a fashion merchandiser in the city's garment district. She started by buying antique and estate gems and finished pieces specifically to take them apart and rework them into new designs, a habit of repurposing that became the brand's working method before she launched her original Clarity Collection in 2012.

Nak Armstrong Jewelry

Nak Armstrong Jewelry

Nak Armstrong trained as an architect at the University of Texas before a detour into New York fashion led him back to Austin, where a textile company he ran with a partner pivoted into jewelry by the late 1990s under the name Anthony Nak. After that partnership ended around 2009, Armstrong spent two years developing a new direction and launched his eponymous label in 2011, quickly picked up by Barneys New York and Bergdorf Goodman.

Gemella Jewels: Twin Sisters and Third-Generation Jewelers

Gemella Jewels: Twin Sisters and Third-Generation Jewelers

Gemella Jewels is run by twin sisters Anna and Rachel Aschendorf out of New York, third-generation jewelers whose grandparents Fred and Stella built a jewelry business from scratch after surviving the Holocaust, eventually settling in the German jewelry town of Pforzheim. The sisters trained properly first, GIA and Diamond District certifications between them, before naming the label Gemella, Italian for twin, and leaning on the bezel settings their grandmother favored back in the 1950s rather than chasing whatever stone cut is trending.

Rosie Assoulin Dresses: Halters, Gowns and Midis

Rosie Assoulin Dresses: Halters, Gowns and Midis

Rosie Assoulin dresses include a twisted lame maxi halter, a silk midi scarf dress and a linen jacquard gown. I start with her path, from Brooklyn to Roxanne Assoulin, Oscar de la Renta and Lanvin.

Judith Leiber Couture Bags

Judith Leiber Couture Bags

Judith Leiber, a Budapest-trained handbag maker who survived the Nazi occupation and emigrated to New York in 1947, started her own company there in 1963 after twelve years working for designer Nettie Rosenstein. A shipment of poorly plated brass frames pushed her to cover the flaws in crystals, and that fix became the house's signature minaudière, the small, sculptural evening bag later carried by numerous First Ladies.

Lafayette 148 Knitwear

Lafayette 148 Knitwear

Deirdre Quinn started Lafayette 148 in 1996 with clothing manufacturers Shun Yen Siu and Ida Siu, naming the label after the SoHo address where the three of them began with, as Quinn has told it, a desk and a phone in the middle of a garment factory. The brand built its own production facility in Shantou, China, making it one of the few fashion houses that is genuinely vertically integrated from design through manufacturing.

ELCE Seminyak: The Bali Swim Shop Behind the Brand

ELCE Seminyak: The Bali Swim Shop Behind the Brand

ELCE traces back to a small swim shop that Laura Sheather opened in Seminyak, Bali, in her twenties, long before she teamed up with Tara Mitchell to relaunch the label from Sydney. The pair kept the label's Bali roots and wanderlust attitude but rebuilt it as an Australian resortwear brand built around fluid, easy-to-wear cuts and a stated commitment to sustainable production.