Meet the 21 Designers, Stylists, Models, and Insiders Who Are Re-Energizing Fashion In NYC

Jacket, $4,700, by Dior Men / His own pants, by Marc Jacobs / His own boots, by Gucci / Jewelry, his own

“I’m wearing either a suit or a dress. It depends on the day.”

Raúl de Nieves, Artist

In February, at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Brooklyn-based de Nieves debuted his first solo show, an homage to his mother, Fina, who was a talented seamstress in Michoacán, Mexico. It features couture-level wearable sculptures made with countless hours of hand-sewn beading, a nod to his home country’s crafting traditions. (Some literally take years to finish.) “Making us clothes was [my mom’s] way of being creative,” de Nieves says. “Now I love making clothes as art objects. Right now I’m cutting up these horrible beaded ’80s party dresses and making them even tackier.” De Nieves’s own style is similarly maximalist, but more trippy than tacky—as exemplified by the towering, bead-encrusted high heels that turned him into a breakout star of 2017’s Whitney Biennial.