Perry Ellis Spring/Summer 1993

Conner Ives runs his own eponymous label. He was already an LVMH Prize finalist by 2023, but broke into the mainstream in 2025 with his "Protect the Dolls" tees, worn by celebrities like Pedro Pascal, Tilda Swinton, and Troye Sivan in support of trans rights. That same year, he won the BFC/Vogue Designer Fashion Fund, a £150,000 grant from the British Fashion Council.

Chow and Osborne founded Public School in 2008, bonding over their shared experiences growing up in NYC. Blending streetwear with tailoring within PSNY, they also went on to co-run DKNY as creative directors from 2015 to 2016 before returning full-time to their own label.

Everard "Ev Bravado" Best and Téla D'Amore co-founded Who Decides War in New York's Lower East Side, combining their design and business acumen into a brand that has garnered a large fanbase over the years.

Rachel Scott founded Diotima in 2021, often referencing Jamaican crochet and craft traditions. In 2024, she became the first Black woman to win the CFDA American Womenswear Designer of the Year, and in 2025, she was named creative director of Proenza Schouler while still running Diotima.

Lacoste was founded by René Lacoste in 1933 in France. He was nicknamed "The Crocodile"
after making a bet with another player that he could win a big match at the 1927 US Championships. If Lacoste was to win, he would receive a crocodile-skin suitcase. He lost the match, but the nickname (and his relentless playing style) stuck, and he later had a friend embroider a crocodile onto his tennis blazer.

Ellesse was founded by Leonardo Servadio, a tailor from Perugia, Italy, in 1959. Although not founded by a tennis player, the brand became associated with the sport in the '70s and '80s through sponsorships of players like Chris Evert, Boris Becker, and Guillermo Vilas.

Fred Perry was founded by the three-time Wimbledon champion of the same name, the only Brit to complete a career Grand Slam.

Sergio Tacchini was founded by the Italian tennis player of the same name in 1966. He was the Italian national champion in 1960, having beaten defending champion Nicola Pietrangeli in the final.

Fashion Week was invented in 1943 by publicist Eleanor Lambert. During World War II, American fashion journalists and buyers couldn't safely travel to Paris, which had always been the center of the fashion world. While working for the New York Dress Institute, Lambert organized a showcase of American designers for the press at the Plaza Hotel, calling it "Press Week." It was a hit! Magazines that once filled their pages with French fashion and designers like Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli started covering American designers like Claire McCardell, Norman Norell, and Hattie Carnegie instead, and the event eventually evolved into what we now know as New York Fashion Week. Lambert went on to found the CFDA, the Met Gala, and the International Best Dressed List, shaping the modern fashion industry as we know it today.