Meet the 4 Emerging Black Designers to Debut on This Year’s Harlem’s Fashion Row Runway

Charles Harbison, who originally went to school for architecture and formerly worked for Michael Kors and Billy Reid, focuses on designing women’s day wear, evening wear, separates, shoes, bags, and jewelry to menswear, furniture, and textiles through the HARBISON Studio label, founded in 2013. Winner of the Harlem’s Fashion Row designer collaboration with Banana Republic, which was chosen through an application process, Charles brings us a new product line that reaches the bulk of America in a way he’s been unable to before. Famous for dressing the likes of Ava Duvernay on the red carpet at the Vanity Fair Oscars Party and Beyoncé for the Yeezy season 1 show, he explores “body neutrality” through his pieces that are for all genders.

Brandice of Harlem’s Fashion Row says: “Charles’s outfits will make you tilt your head back and be like, ‘That’s incredible.’ He has this way of colourblocking and using unpredictable colour combinations together, which I’m very excited about.”

Charles Harbison says: “I’m not just looking to work for men, or work for women, or work for nonbinary people. I’m also seeking for my apparel to work for short people, to work for curvier people, to work for really tall people. And so there’s a space of dressing that is so democratic and inclusive and it’s also an age-old sentiment. We see cultures having navigated this in beautiful ways for centuries. And it’s just a matter of us tapping into it and establishing a personal affinity for it. Harbison is there to give you a product that reflects that.”

This season: You’ll find colorblocking, cutouts, formfitting silhouettes that flatter the body, bright colours, and prints.

Founded in 2014 by Nigeria Ealey, Esaïe Jean Simon, and Victor James, TIER is currently showing their fourth project called TIER Island. Each drop stands for a season, and while the team was getting ready to shoot the campaign for “winter,” Brandice reached out about establishing a connection and offering them the platform to show at NYFW. TIER received the Icon360 Award from Harlem’s Fashion Row, which helped the trio with production. Above all else, the brand is artistic, intentional, and experiential. Its aim is to offer customers more than a garment, but an experience.

Brandice of Harlem’s Fashion Row says: “TIER is one of the industry’s best kept secrets. The brand brings elevated street wear to the fashion world from the perspective of three Black men who have Caribbean and Brooklyn roots. If I had one word to describe them, it would be audacious. Some of the things they pull off, I’m like, ‘How did they pull that off?’ If any other mainstream brand was doing some of the things they’re doing, it would be this big, huge deal.”

Co-Founder and Creative Director Nigeria Ealey says: “My mind wanders. TIER comes from inspirations of what I liked as a child growing up and life experiences. People always remember the experience they had with a person, moment, brand, or item, so I try to approach design from an experiential way.”

This season: “I was thinking about the year we had in lockdown not being able to see friends, family, and loved ones. Just like everything in life, I thought, ‘this too shall pass.’ There was so much going on with COVID, criminal and social injustice, and we wanted to make people happy and feel lively again, showing them somewhere they can be at peace and love, where opportunities are endless. The concept stemmed from me watching old movies and cartoons, specifically Scooby-Doo’s Spooky Island, Jurassic Park, and Yu-Gi-Oh!. We took our logo, turned it into our own island, and broke that island down piece by piece from the resorts, amusement park, and excursions to where the research labs are in the mountainous areas, the population, and means of transportation. The concept was a lot of work, but it was exciting work because it was piecing together things that we love and have experienced or seen through travelling.”

Johnathan Hayden launched his namesake brand while finishing his graduate studies at The Savannah College of Art and Design in 2015. He is an artist and musician turned designer who has undergone adaptive design specialty training and creates luxury RTW and evening wear for the modern intellect.

Johnathan’s goal is to merge commerce and charity and show how that can be a feasible model for the fashion industry. He’s been working with a nonprofit in Costa Rica to teach young women to embroider, sew, and eventually start their own companies and he has dreams of growing his membership at The Met Opera to make modern, interpretative costumes for new productions. Because of his ability to successfully incorporate adaptive details that go beyond friendlier closures, his clothes acknowledge that the power of fashion is about self-dressing.

Brandice of Harlem’s Fashion Row says: “[Johnathan] could design mugs, he could design lamps, he could design furniture, or he could design clothes, and he’s decided to design clothes. So he’s bringing all of that into his very unique design aesthetic with inspiration from his Japanese roots. He offered me a dress with a print and I said, ‘No, I want a solid,’ because the details on his dresses are just that beautiful. He’s so intentional about everything.”

Johnathan Hayden says: “Can you imagine how frustrating it would be to miss that job interview, to not attend that party, to not go on that date, or not attend that fashion show simply because you were limited by what you could wear? Design is a two-sided conversation, and if you think of that proposition and acceptance of a design proposal as a contract, then was it agreeable in the first place if it never considered the needs of the person across the table, even the one seated in a wheelchair? Like all of our construction and functional details, we want things to be covert. Those intimate details of self-dressing are personal and don’t need to be broadcasted to the world. We love to hear people think that the clothes are beautiful, but maybe just a tiny bit better than beauty because they are seeking to cultivate an internal sense of empowerment for more people to participate in all of life’s experiences. Quality of life is a luxury.”

This season: “Freedom is the focus of this body of work. Many of us turned to nature to heal. Original prints show bucolic scenes, Nouveau graphic feathers à la Aubrey Beardsley, and ’60s wallpapers reworked for today. Sensorial textiles developed with repetitious and meditative embroidery techniques forge variations of print motifs and plaids that join scrap materials to their surfaces. The result is a textural experience both visual and tactile. Brought in close to expose these intimate details, the postcard is signed: I wish you were here.”

Chief Architect and Creative Director of June79 Shawn Pean brings his luxury background (he’s worked for Balmain, Valentino, and Saks) to his quintessential “unsuit.” Pean wants his customers to be able to live in various different settings without having to change what they wear, feel overdressed, or underdressed. His more casual “unsuit” therefore allows them to mix business with social, so they don’t have to change three times a day, but can still express themselves. His fabrics have a performative quality, so they stretch and flex. Sure enough, womenswear is on the horizon – Pean has already designed an entire collection, so once he feels the time is right and his company has become established, you can expect much more from the brand.

Brandice of Harlem’s Fashion Row says: “June79 offers a new way of dressing for men who want to shop luxury. My husband hadn’t bought a custom suit in the last five years, but he looks on June79’s website and he’s super excited. I think he has the potential to be our next big Brooks Brothers – but the new version of it.”

Shawn Pean says: “When I look at luxury, I think it’s about mindset. There’s always perceived value to whoever the beholder is. June79 is made with great care and quality in New York, and I’m very close to the product. Seeing everything from the fabrics that we use to the way the clothes are constructed, and then offering it at a great value, becomes a luxury.”

This season: You’ll find jacquard, jewel-toned bombers with mix-and-match tailored shorts, plus a foray into tropical prints by way of a gender neutral suit with tailored Bermudas.