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With the advent of each season comes a host of new brands, Rebecca Gonsalves highlights some of the best
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The creative director Laura Myers has something of a nomadic past: raised in New Zealand with regular trips to Tahiti, before attending Brown University on the east coast of America and forging a career in New York and then Europe. Translated to her brand Atea, this experience manifests itself in clean, modern lines married to easy, fluid fabrics and preppy detailing – creating investment pieces well suited to a working wardrobe, but relaxed enough to be worn almost anywhere. From £75, ateaoceanie.com
Rains
Contrary to the opinion of most residents, the British Isles don’t have a monopoly on wet weather – indeed Denmark sees a yearly average of 121 days of rain, conditions that inspired Rains. Aiming to marry minimalistic style with functionality and comfort when it launched a year ago, the brand has a steadily growing global fan base thanks to its use of bright primary colours and design collaborations with established Danish brands such as Mads Norgaard and Alis. For the new season, trench coats and bomber jackets are added to an expanding offering that now also includes limited edition collections. From £70, urbanoutfitters.co.uk
Kisua
Boasting not just one brand, Kisua is an online collective of African design talent with 10 names to its roster – soon to be supplemented with 10 more. The project – which aims to bring African talent on to a world stage as well as assisting with funding, distribution and the teaching of production values – is led by CEO Samuel Mensah who was perplexed by the lack of established fashion brands on the continent.
Designers have been handpicked from countries including South Africa, where one such was found in a Johannesburg market, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Traditional printed fabrics, vibrant colours and beadwork all feature. From £50, kisua.com, from October
Stills
Created in-house in an atelier in Amsterdam, the pattern-makers, seamstresses and designers collaborating on this contemporary label are led by head of design Korrie Vulkers and design manager Martin Tramper. This season, the collection combines the androgyny of modern tailoring with rich fabrics and graphic prints, the latter inspired by “the nostalgia and tenderness of a beloved photograph… with colours faded like the memories they convey”. But there is little sentimental about clothes which feel fresh, clean and very current. From £25, harveynichols.com
Charlotte Tilbury
A name that readers of glossy magazines will already be familiar with, Tilbury is one of the best known make-up artists in the business working backstage at fashion week, behind the scenes of cutting-edge editorials and painting the familiar faces of the A-list. Now she is putting more than two decades of experience into her own 100-piece line of cosmetics designed to create 10 signature looks that range from the soft and feminine Ingénue, inspired by the likes of Mia Farrow, to the sultry Vintage Vamp á la Louise Brooks and Lauren Bacall. From £5, selfridges.com
Katie Rowland
Central Saint Martin’s graduate Katie Rowland’s fine jewellery may be bank-breakingly expensive for most – although her celebrity fans such as Lady Gaga and Elle Macpherson don’t have to worry about that – but more affordable sterling silver and gold vermeil pieces mean that she should not be dismissed out of hand. Often inspired by powerful women in mythology, this season Rowland’s collection, Morrigan, unfurls from tales of that Celtic goddess of sovereignty, fertility and battle via crow-like talons and feathers, curved metalwork and weaponry-inspired shapes. From £65, katie-rowland.com
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