Rising expertise, names to know: ‘Rebellion’ is a month-to-month characteristic highlighting an brisk new vanguard of style expertise, chosen by the Wallpaper* model workforce.
Crib notes
Title: Colleen Allen
Model: Colleen Allen
Alumnus of: Parsons Faculty of Design, Central Saint Martins
Metropolis: New York, United States
Signature model: Delicately crafted womenswear for the modern-day witch.
Design Philosophy
Colleen Allen’s garments are so unapologetically female that it might come as a shock to study her old flame was menswear. The Chicago-born, Brooklyn-based designer studied the rigorous codes of males’s tailoring at Parsons and Central Saint Martins, earlier than slicing her enamel underneath Raf Simons throughout his tenure at Calvin Klein. She later contributed to the smooth minimalism of menswear at The Row, leaving to launch her personal namesake label at the beginning of 2024. In simply two quick years, Allen has been extensively celebrated as considered one of New York’s brightest new breakout stars – and with good motive.
Allen’s wardrobe, like that of lots of the finest designers, is outlined by an astute stability of contrasts: timeless but intriguing, formal but straightforward. Her signature is a beguiling mix of diaphanous drape, Victorian underpinning-inspired layering and a darkish romance that, every season, could be traced again not directly to the archetype of ‘the witch’. Whereas many different designers desirous about such themes fall sufferer to their mystical narratives – making clothes that could be stunning, however impractical to put on – Allen’s garments are at all times fashionable, unfussy and charged with simply the correct quantity of magic. Crucially, they serve to raise the girl who’s carrying them, and by no means the opposite manner round.
(Picture credit score: Colleen Allen)
‘I at all times cherished the philosophy of menswear, the bodily course of behind it,’ Allen tells Wallpaper*, showing on display from her residence in New York. The designer goes on to elucidate how she finds the puzzle of Victorian dressmaking akin to the craft of tailoring, the place a bustle, crinoline, bloomer and jacket belong collectively just like the elements of a three-piece go well with. ‘The rationale I did not establish with being a womenswear designer within the first place is that usually there’s an untouchability or preciousness to girls’s garments,’ she provides. ‘For me, the objective is at all times to seize that transformative expertise of dressing up, however in a manner that’s a part of each day life.’
As such, Allen’s designs land in an area that feels each glamorous and actual. Take a lustrous, celery-green velvet home coat lined with humble washed muslin – a chunk she’s as probably to wear down to dinner in Manhattan as she is to chuck on to stroll her canines in Brooklyn very first thing within the morning. ‘What I really like about doing womenswear now could be that it comes from private need and a lot life expertise,’ she says; it is a self-confidence little doubt steeled by years spent working in-house at main manufacturers. ‘I believe when individuals speak about empowering girls by means of costume, it usually will get conflated with dressing like a person. What I’m desirous about is energy with softness and vulnerability.’
(Picture credit score: Colleen Allen)
An array of references feed into Allen’s work within the studio, from feminist literature to curiosities present in vintage markets, in addition to the spirit of fearless up to date girls. (Again in 2024, a Eighties picture of Vivienne Westwood flashing Queen Elizabeth II impressed a sequence of sensual, bumster-peeking robes.) Revealed, as at all times, with a quiet presentation reasonably than a runway, her S/S 2026 assortment drew on the darkish mind of Sylvia Plath, translating the author’s introspective world right into a research of clothes that not often depart the home. ‘I didn’t know Plath was into the occult and browse tarot for enjoyable till I started the gathering,’ Allen says. ‘However then, in fact, it made excellent sense to me that she was into witchy issues.’
The ensuing assortment sees the intimacy of dressing robes, lingerie, and slip attire unleashed from their home settings, made as a substitute for all times exterior the home. Cool-to-the-touch silks in balmy splashes of marigold, ultraviolet, and child peach fall languidly across the curves of the physique, trimmed with lace sourced from the 250-year-old Sophie Hallette mill in France. Elsewhere, a darker sorceress power seems in a floaty hooded ‘ritual’ cloak worn over a chiffon, floor-skimming black costume, minimize with a pointy keyhole element operating from the clavicle to simply above the stomach button.
(Picture credit score: Colleen Allen)
Maybe greater than any season earlier than, these garments reveal Allen’s capacity to strike the candy spot between delicate and highly effective. ‘It’s the closest I’ve gotten to the physique,’ she says of their making. ‘I used to be pondering lots concerning the feeling on the pores and skin, as there’s actually nothing in between you and these garments. I believe the silks actually have this slippery, cooling impact. I cherished the concept of materials that really feel cool for a spring assortment. When individuals come to the showroom, what I really like is a bodily response to touching the clothes – an “ooh” or a sigh. That’s an enormous need of mine: that my buyer has an emotional response to the garments.’
Whereas Allen’s work is rooted in ability, craft, and a forensic obsession with Victorian costume, it’s in the end this need to make girls really feel nice that drives the whole lot she does. ‘Whether or not that’s the color or the bodily texture of the material, I would like individuals to really feel like an elevated model of themselves – in an emotional manner, not a luxurious manner,’ she explains. ‘Variety of a better, non secular, mystical model of themselves.’
Whereas speak of non secular embodiment would possibly sound somewhat woo-woo – Allen delivers these observations with a realizing smile – it’s clearly a mission that’s paying off. In simply 4 seasons, she has acquired widespread trade recognition, whereas her designs have been noticed on style-forward creatives like Petra Collins, Charli XCX, Kembra Pfahler, Lily Allen, and Greta Lee.
(Picture credit score: Colleen Allen)
When requested what she’s most enthusiastic about in 2026, it’s not business development or the eye a runway would possibly deliver, however deepening her connection to this increasing coven of artists. ‘There are such a lot of girls in tradition proper now that I’ve such deep respect for,’ Allen says. ‘Dressing Lily [Allen] for the CDFAs was actually particular, and beforehand working with Charli [XCX]. Being in dialog with these girls and having the ability to assist their work is so satisfying.’ It could appear, similar to the oft-misunderstood determine of the witch, Allen is much less desirous about conference than shifting by means of the world on her personal phrases. Listening to her, it is unimaginable to not fall underneath her spell.
In Their Phrases
‘I’ve been obsessive about witches since I used to be somewhat child. After I was making an attempt to outline who I’m as a lady and what I resonate with, that’s at all times what it got here again to. I return many times to the archetype of the witch and the way she exhibits up in tradition. Generally it’s in a literal sense, different instances it’s a lady from historical past or a fictional character who carries that spirit – somebody who goes in opposition to the grain.
‘Initially, I didn’t actually know why I used to be so drawn to the Victorian period, however I believe it’s as a result of the silhouettes for girls on the time have been these extremely complicated tailor-made shapes that geometrically mould across the feminine physique. With historic dressing, it’s about constructing a silhouette: a bloomer, a petticoat, a corset, a coverlet, all coming collectively to create an general expertise. I believe that’s one thing up to date womenswear has misplaced. It’s not that I would like dressing to really feel restrictive or formal, however reasonably that dialog between underwear and outerwear is one thing I’m continually taking part in with.’
colleenallen.com
Colleen Allen
Shirred Cotton-Velvet Robe
Colleen Allen
Panelled fleece jacket
Colleen Allen
Cotton-velvet coat
Supply: Wallpaper
