4 min readNot everything at fashion week happens on the runway, despite what Instagram posts might suggest. Throughout the week, editors and buyers squeeze market appointments and presentations—often from smaller brands and designers—in between those megawatt runway shows. More often than not, this is where you find the most wearable pieces, the things you could envision slotting into your wardrobe right away. Take, for instance, Attersee, a brand that melds the eccentricities of eveningwear with the wearability of daywear. Or Herbert Levine, a newly revived footwear brand that gives traditional silhouettes a bit of quirk and attitude. These are brands you definitely need to know.
Ahead, we’ve rounded up the best collections we saw at presentations and market appointments at New York Fashion Week.
Attersee
Isabel Wilkinson Schor continues to expand the brand Attersee, which she founded in 2021. This season, she added a bit more punch to her subtly wacky evening-inspiring daywear; she was inspired by ecstatic rave photography and the graphic rigor of the Bauhaus. There were marled merino knits that resembled TV static, unexpected pops of cherry red and cobalt blue in cotton T-shirts, and draped silk eveningwear in deep greens and plums.
Mel Usine
Designer Stephen Biga of Mel Usine launched with a debut collection that recontextualized medieval themes last season. For Fall 2026, he evolved that idea by examining representation of women in the La Dame à la licorne tapestries (1490–1500) and the gesture of Jules Coutan’s sculpture La Porteuse de pain (1882)—more specifically, the cutaway bustle detailing at its back. The latter got a literal representation with layers of black and white sheer fabric and black leather. Additional silhouettes this season include a sheer capelet, silk brocade tailoring, and a patchwork crochet column dress.
Don’t Let Disco
Don’t Let Disco debuted its first fine jewelry collection this season with The Architecture of Light: A Study in Continuity. The brand was founded by Ashley Moubayed in 2021 with an ethos of eclectic beadwork. She evolved that idea this season with translucent orbs of rock crystal that refract light alongside carnelian, citrine, unakite, the Moqui Stone, and a sprinkle of diamonds.
6397
Stella Ishii, co-owner of the designer showroom The News, founded 6397 over a decade ago as a brand that mainly dealt in jeans and tees. Since then, she’s expanded to outfit a full wardrobe with very real clothes very for real women. 6397’s Fall 2026 collection began not with a typical moodboard but with color. Shades of purple, green, and brown span an array of diverse textiles. Highlights include a ’20s-style crushed velvet mustard-hued sheath dress with a bow at the shoulder, a brown tweed clingy skirt suit with frayed edges, and a double-breasted knee-length coat that forecasts a movement away from oversize outerwear.
Herbert Levine
Trevor Houston, who designed shoes for The Row, Khaite, Marc Jacobs, and more, only revived midcentury footwear brand Herbert Levine last year, but he’s already attracted a lot of attention from the fashion crowd. His designs are sophisticated and quirky at the same time. His satin V-ed mules, sweet D’Orsay ballet flats, and flat zippered boots each have just the right amount of attitude.
Colleen Allen
This season, New York It designer Colleen Allen looked to the work of Louise Bourgeois and its tension between softness and strength. She ideated on colors like deep persimmon and dark iris after seeing the faded richness of antique tapestries. Those ideas come together in ensembles like one with a draped orange-red velvet top just barely adhered at the back and a low-slung pair of violet velvet trousers. Other old-meets-new favorites include a column dress of distressed antique lace and a sharp gray skirt suit with an asymmetrical collar.
Maria McManus
Maria McManus looked to her home country of Ireland’s craft, photography, poetry, music, and, more literally, its Aran cables, tweeds, crochet, and heirloom pearls to inspire her Fall 2026 collection. She paired a recycled cashmere fisherman sweater with a full black skirt and petticoat finished with delicate Dentelle de Calais–Caudry ivory lace. She launched in 2020 with a focus on clothes that are both sustainably made and desirable to wear—and she continues to iterate on both with this collection of faux fur coats, crocheted bandanas, deadstock python leather pencil skirts, and more.
Chan Luu
Tessa Tran has revamped her aunt’s brand Chan Luu over the past few years, expanding it from just jewelry to include ready-to-wear and accessories and evolving it into something splendid, desirable, and rather affordable. This season, she hosted a cocktail party at the tail end of fashion week to present her latest collection, this one full of painterly camouflage, button snaps with brooches made by her mother, techno taffeta, and cascading sequin embellishments.
Marina Moscone
Marina Moscone has been quietly designing collections here in New York since she founded her brand in 2016. For Fall 2026, she debuted another collection at the Hotel Chelsea that expanded upon the house codes she set in place a decade ago like blazers with a nipped waist and dramatically draped separates. In some of her most exciting pieces, she cut silk into geometric panels, each strip sliced on the bias and finished with a lettuce edge, then tacked them loosely together to create garments.
Grey’s
Emily Grey does wonderful things with knitwear with the brand she launched with Fall 2024; you wouldn’t always know the pieces she makes are knitwear like an elaborate heavyweight chenille cardigan or an oversize knit jacket. But it’s not all knits. This season, for example, there’s a mid-length skirt that’s embroidered with delicate falling leaves made of a viscose fabric from India that’s soft and shiny on the outside and somehow much sturdier on the inside.
Heirlome
The magic of Stephanie Suberville’s Heirlome, which launched in 2022, lies in the brand’s collaboration with artisans in Mexico and Latin America. She infuses modern silhouettes with traditional techniques to create something that feels fresh for today. Think: a cropped creamy bouclé shirt, a top patchworked with contrasting knitwear weaves, and an asymmetrically draped jacquard skirt.