Rachel Comey celebrates 25 years with a show dedicated to "interesting women" The designer and founder, still at the helm of an independent brand, is proof that creative depth always wins

2026 is the year of the performative male, of the explicit outfit, of books as accessories, of niche interests flaunted on social media to project an intellectual depth that, in practice, serves no purpose beyond picking someone up. For SS27, American designer Rachel Comey took the phenomenon and ran with it, stripping away the male, the performative, and leaving behind something of genuine cultural substance. The collection is dedicated to interesting women, the designer and brand founder explained backstage - and more specifically, it pays tribute to Rosalyn Drexler, an American visual artist, playwright, and writer who passed away last year at the age of 98.

The most direct nod to Drexler comes through the bags, with some of the author's novels tucked into crinkled, metallic clutches on the runway. But it is the more indirect references that pique the audience's curiosity: The Cosmopolitan Girl, published in 1974, tells the story of a woman who falls in love with a dog, after all. And so, rather than settling for reproducing cover graphics on her garments - a trick many brands love to deploy to lend an intellectual air to a collection without too much effort - Comey chooses to study Drexler's characters and reimagine them in 2026, with the exception of a T-shirt advertising the exhibition Rosalyn Drexler: My Life Has a Life of Its Own, which has just opened at the Garth Greenan Gallery in New York.

Thanks to this study of character, Rachel Comey's SS27 radiates a pleasantly New York spirit. Not imitated, but rooted in the stories of a quintessentially New York woman: a multifaceted artist who, during the most brilliant decades of American culture, worked across visual art, literature, theater, screenwriting, and much more (Drexler was also a wrestler, fyi).

Drexler's artistic richness is reflected in the variety of Comey's collection and its styling. Klein blue capri pants peek out from beneath black shift dresses, themselves layered under long, dark dusters; one bulky bag tucked under the arm isn't enough, so tailored trousers are topped with large utility belts; dresses are in corduroy and floor-length, pooling at the ankles; sporty bermuda shorts are studded with flat studs; evening looks are crinkled, as is a hooded zip-up dress-jumpsuit in candy pink.

For the brand's 25th anniversary, Rachel Comey demonstrated one of the key reasons she has managed to keep her company independent: having something to say and an audience that knows how to listen. Because it is easy to imagine fashion as a vain and detached world - a performative male with an avoidant attachment style and a pathological obsession with his own shoe collection - but what paradoxically keeps this industry standing is not appearances. It is deeper connections, that community so much discussed in recent months. And Rachel Comey's community, made up of interesting women, knows exactly how to show up for their favorite designer.