Colleen Allen

Feminine Energy. Colleen Allen AW25

| Design & Culture by Ed

Colleen Allen is a designer that brings hope to New York Fashion Week. Her autumn-winter 2025 lookbook is a delightful blend of what she’s already recognized for – curiosity for Victorian-era garments and a certain elusive, beguiling witchiness – and a new-found sensuality seen through a witty lens. The collection is modelled by the artist Kembra Pfahler, whose famous layered imprints of her buttocks on canvas inspired Allen. “It was like a fuck you way of referencing Yves Klein and how he used to utilize the female body as a paint brush,” she said, explaining her choice of blue in this season’s blue velvet coat-dress. In general, this collection had a thing to do with “a little bit of butt,” as the designer stated. The coats have an exaggerated back cut, offering playful peekaboo moment for a bum glimpse. This extremely talented designer is channeling a new, badass, feminine energy that fashion needs – through a female gaze.

In case you missed my interview with Colleen – here’s the link!

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Sacrum & Profanum. Colleen Allen SS25

| Design & Culture by Ed

Emerging brands like Colleen Allen keep New York Fashion Week’s heart beating. But lets note that Allen can be hardly called an emerging designer with an impressive portfolio of working at some of New York’s finest institutions: Raf Simons’s Calvin Klein and The Row. But these two aren’t defining her aesthetically, as Colleen has proved in her debut collection and also in her sophomore season. Spring-summer 2025 offering is all about a play with lightness and draping. You’ve got very sensual, sheer numbers, and then you’ve got stunning, velvet-y drapings that hug the body. Some of the pieces – like the ankle-length, white dress with turtleneck – have a pastoral, even clerical feel about them, but then then the ecclesiastical regality is twisted and subverted with sexy lace of hemlines and body-revealing slits of blouses and jackets. It’s also worth noting that Colleen has a brilliant sense of color: just look the the opening shade of tangerine. Retailers, here’s a brand to buy into.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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Acts of Light. Colleen Allen AW24

| Design & Culture by Ed

If there’s one debut collection that you’ve got to see this New York Fashion Week, then it’s Colleen Allen‘s autumn-winter 2024 line-up. A former Vogue assistant who cut her teeth at Raf Simons’s Calvin Klein and The Row, Allen can be hardly called an emerging designer with such impressive portfolio. Her first collection proves she’s got a certain design-maturity that many, many names in New York are still having a hard time in finding. Kept in a vibrant color palette of deep red and cardinal purple, Allen offers a wardrobe filled with body-wrapping knits and jerseys. The draped, flowing dress makes you think of Halston’s 1980s costumes for modern dancer and choreographer Martha Graham, particularly the ones created for the “Acts of Light” performances. The velvet-y, floor-sweeping, red opera coat makes the collection turn an even more theatrical direction, but not overly, we’re still grounded in reality. You can definitely picture the entire offering in IRL circumstances, especially the wonderfully tailored blazers, poet vests, and multi-layered tops. With confidence, Colleen Allen brings much-needed spirit to New York’s league of minimalism.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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