Three CFDA-Winning Designers on Dressing for 2025

The next time you get dressed, designer Christopher John Rogers suggests considering a question: Are you carving yourself out? He offers other prompts to chew on: “Do you feel you can breathe easily?" “Are you excited to show up?” The purpose of this self-interrogation, he explains, is to push back on the idea that a good outfit equals looking hot and, instead, focus inward. “It’s not about gaze. It’s about a feeling.”

We’re gathered upstairs at the Absolutely Fabrics shop on Toronto’s Queen Street West. It’s a rainy winter evening and the studio loft of the designer boutique has been transformed into a dreamy escape. Gauzy white draping graces the walls, a candle-lit dinner table is set and an opulent tower of espresso martinis balances in the corner. Christopher John Rogers — owner of his namesake label — is an honoured guest, alongside Rachel Scott of Diotima and Henry Zankov of Zankov. All New-York-City-based CFDA-winning brands are now available at the Canadian luxury shop, ushering in a new era of designer shopping where self-exploration takes centre stage.

You see, when it comes to quality and price point, these labels certainly fall into the “luxury” category. But unlike old-school luxury players, they’re not defined by heritage house codes and self-serious prestige. Devoid of the preciousness that makes us reserve a bag for only special occasions or wear a favourite dress on just one night a year, their clothes are meant to be lived in.

Each with a unique vision but a shared sense of rebellion, these designers give shopping — and getting dressed — a fresh perspective. At the Absolutely Fabrics boutique, their pieces shine in their full sensory form: ready to be touched, tried and experienced in real life. To celebrate their new presence in Canada, FASHION asked them to share their advice for dressing in a way that carves you out.

Embrace contradictions

Every interesting outfit requires tension; push and pull, give and take — and crucially, a dash of contradiction. But the tyranny of trends, which make sweeping declarations of how we all should or shouldn’t dress, turns this tension into placid slack. That’s why these designers lean into the paradoxical.

Rogers, for instance, has crafted a world of colour-clashing, subversive silhouettes and unexpected textiles, like starchy fire-fighter garb and fabrics with plastic coatings. Blending drama with wearability, he crafts a glamour that goes with you anywhere — an approach that led him to win the 2021 CFDA Womenswear Designer of the Year Award. Why merge ostensibly opposing ideals? “Because I’m interested in both,” he says. Being curious about something is reason enough to explore it.

This tension doesn’t have to come just from hard-to-find materials. Henry Zankov — who was named the Emerging Designer of the Year at the 2024 CFDAs — plays with an age-old textile: knitwear. Leaning into lumpy textures, acid-wash patterns and cheeky cut outs, the Zankov designer pushes back on preconceived notions that knitwear is safe or always the same. “We’ve never done a cable knit sweater,” he says. “And we probably never will.”

Leveraging tension in your self-expression can also come from exploring your own inner conflicts. This is a through-line for Rachel Scott, whose work at Diotima regularly dips into dichotomies. Sensual sheers and sexy cutouts are paired with thick tassels and whimsical sequins, resulting in a layered story that reflects real-world complexities. “I think that people’s stories are often flattened, especially women, especially Black women,” says Scott, who won the 2024 CFDA Womenswear Designer of the Year Award. When we don’t leave room for nuance, she explains, we lose the texture that makes people interesting. “Someone can seem extremely perfect, but then be falling apart in an interior world. People hold these tensions within themselves,” she says. “I’m always trying to find a way to point at that.”

Next time you’re torn between two ideas, try opting for both.

Love things unapologetically

“It often feels like fashion is so polar; everyone’s either searching for something individual or buying into some pre-described aesthetic,” says Rogers. “And there’s an opportunity to do something else.” If you’re curious about opting out of trends, you have to first figure out what you like and don’t like. Scott points to the quiet luxury revival of the past two years, which saw countless runways riff on a similar idea, creating an echo chamber of streamlined silhouettes, logo-less bags and beige palettes. To her, this culture of recreation hinders creativity. “There’s no reason to be derivative,” she says. “There’s no reason to try and rehash old ideas. Ideas come up at the moment, and I think there’s an appetite for new ones.”

To get re-invigorated by fashion, you have to be unafraid of showing enthusiasm — even when it’s cool to act like you don’t care. “I think there’s a renewed interest in authenticity and a lack of irony,” reflects Rogers. Take Jeremy Strong at the Golden Globes; showing up in a mint velvet suit and matching bucket hat and standing behind fully. “It’s less, ‘How funny is this thing?’ and more, ‘I really love this thing,’” says Rogers.

He hopes that his designs unlock a childhood whimsy for the wearer. Think back to the magic of fishing out a tutu from your dress-up box, before the high school homogenization of leggings and a logo-stamped zip-up. There was a time when getting dressed was fun, silly and entirely based on joy. To get there, you can’t be shy about showing your interests.

Separate style from appearance

We live in a visual-based world, where everything from dating apps to online shopping platforms encourage us to judge things based solely on how they look. But there are so many other factors that make getting dressed fun: how a textile feels, what space it takes up, the way it hugs or billows out from your body. To these designers, inspiration comes from beyond visual queues.

When Scott is looking to spark creativity, she intentionally avoids images. “My Instagram is all cats and recipes,” she laughs. Instead, she follows a feeling that intrigues her. “Lately, I’ve been thinking about women’s identities; their world’s being flattened.” She points to the idea of the matriarch. What does she do when she’s not caring for her family? What are her desires? How can we explore unseen sides of her? “I’m not trying to recreate what I see, but rather trying to compose something that people might be experiencing.”

Zankov takes a similar approach. “Most of my inspiration comes from the way people live; whether it’s somebody I know or not,” he says. “I’m interested in how people move through life — their daily routines and the decisions they make.”

When we abandon the idea that aesthetic is everything, we can craft a sense of self that transcends binaries, trends, and reductive standards of what makes something worth wearing. It all comes down to carving yourself out. “I’m trying to make something that gives people the choice to be themselves, without having to prescribe to a way of getting dressed,” Rogers says. Here’s to that in 2025.