You could feel the buzz in the upstairs loft space on Elizabeth Street on Monday afternoon during designer Rachel Scott’s spring 2025 presentation: Diotima has the stuff to be the next great American fashion brand.
The CFDA Emerging Designer of the Year, who hails from Jamaica, brought her Caribbean dream and artisanal hand to an expanding wardrobe, including denim and for the first time, footwear. She managed to capture the elusive formula designers are looking for, creating pieces that are special, with authentic handcraft, but also practical enough for a woman to wear through her busy life, and want to cherish for more than one season.
“A lot of work I do is heavily embellished so I was trying to find a way to make something approachable for more people,” said Scott of applying her techniques — faggoting, crochet, broderie anglaise, and intarsia — to everyday jeans, linen blouses and pencil skirts, and diaphanous georgette maxiskirts and dresses.
The brand’s roots are in the seaside landscape, and the tension between sensual dancehall culture and Sunday church propriety. They all played out in the collection themes of revealing and concealing, embellished and humble, as on a sexy burlap tunic tank dress, pants and a clutch bag edged in oyster shell-like paillettes that make noise when they move, which was one of the most fabulous looks I have seen all week.
Knit gowns had serious sex appeal with low-cut fronts and sides, curve-tracing rows of fringe or knit loops, or allover crystal mesh. Other pieces offered just a taste of Diotoma handwork, as on a mock turtleneck with crochet collar, a cream georgette short trench trimmed in fringe, silk slips, cotton shirting and jeans with palm leaf-shaped broderie anglaise.
The crowd was captivated, and during the congratulatory scrum afterward, the Bergdorf Goodman team, which already stocks Diotima, were so into Scott’s own outfit they seemed like they wanted to buy the eyelet button-down shirt and fringe-y mustard-colored long knit skirt right off her back.
“There are people who will bring an artisanal element because it’s something they are feeling that season but for her, it’s at the core,” said Linda Fargo, Bergorf Goodman senior vice president fashion. “She has an authenticity about her and her roots and bringing that into her work in a way that’s not appropriating. Let’s not forget it’s unique. She’s doing something no one else is really doing.”
Scott’s collection is expanding; she had 31 looks, an increase of about 30 percent from last season. It’s a challenging time for young designers, but she’s resolute. “We haven’t broken even yet but are probably going to in the new year, which is great considering we don’t have any outside investment,” she said. “We have great wholesale partners.”