Highxtar Radar: The 6 emerging brands of the month

This month we look at six emerging designers and brands that understand fashion as an exercise in identity: intimate, cultural or radical. Some of them weave by hand in Spain, others deform the pattern in Manhattan or channel their African heritage from Paris. What they have in common: a recognizable aesthetic and a language of their own that sets them apart from the noise of their competition. Here they are -before everyone is talking about them.

1. Bryan Jimenéz

A Dominican living in New York, he started learning to make patterns in a tailor’s shop and ended up being signed by SSENSE, Nordstrom or Slam Jam. His clothes have something intimate, technical and precise. Nothing is casual. Each garment has structure, narrative and weight. Playboi Carti already wears it, but this goes beyond co-signing: it’s a small brand with archival energy.

2. Nikita Correia

She knits from Galicia and uploads it to Vinted and Depop. Long dresses, sets and wedding veils with romantic, almost ghostly airs. Her thing is crochet, but also a kind of hyper-feminine melancholy that turns each look into pure millennial sweetness. From Galicia, she has found her own language: fragile, detailed and radically personal.

3. Julia O’Callaghan

She was one of the members of the design team for Glenn Martens’ debut at Margiela Artisanal, and that sensibility continues to pulsate in her own brand. Her pieces -between performance and textile trauma- have already seduced artists like FKA Twigs. There is something emotional, dark and very delicate at the same time in everything she does. Julia designs like someone writing a visual diary. An expanded body, complex and precious, that could be an insect sometimes, sometimes a fur animal… go to her Instagram and you’ll know what I mean.

4. HYACYN NYC

Founded by Tobias Ulmer, this Manhattan-based brand plays with exaggerated patterns, military references and impossible shoulders. His Anatom jacket is already an icon. His clothes look like they are about to explode. His thing is to deform, exaggerate and create chaos with garments. HYACYN is for people who want to walk down the street as if they were backstage at their own show.

5. BAARA

From Paris, but with African roots. BAARA mixes hip-hop references, urban visual culture and Malian textile heritage. The name comes from Bambara and means “work”. And that’s what you can see in each collection: intention, rhythm and an identity that needs no explanation. One of the most honest and forward-looking proposals right now.

6. Firmé Atelier

Firmé Atelier has been redefining the suit for six years from Downtown L.A. The studio founded by Eric Kim and Paul Um -and now with Jonathan Lee on board- has something of a fashion house, something of a secret workshop and quite a bit of a futuristic tailoring laboratory. Their approach unites the precision of bespoke with the attitude of the streets of Los Angeles.