The Middle Eastern Designers Behind The Glitz and The Glamour
The excitement builds. The front rows quickly fill with famous faces and media darlings. It’s time, and the intoxicating scent of style is in the air.
A sensational spectacle in its own right, New York Fashion Week is an event that causes waves to form on the surface of the fashion industry, sweeping us gracefully into the future of luxury couture. Held September 11–16, 2025, NYFW featured a lineup of snazzy shows and exciting events that brought infinite possibilities into the world of global fashion.
Unlike other global fashion weeks, New York Fashion Week is known for its eclectic mix of global fashion houses, trendy brands, and independent designers. For one week, within the sophisticated streets of the Big Apple, there are no rules. This is where established designers that were once running on coffee and a dream have all made stops on the road to becoming household names. This is where celebrities mingle with fashion muses and creative directors, watching patiently and waiting for their next red-carpet look.
This is where industry icons, magazine mavens, social media influencers, and impossibly chic models fall into step together in a whirlwind fashion frenzy that offers a glimpse into the brilliant minds of the world’s best designers.
This is New York Fashion Week 2025, where anything goes—and everything wows.
Hot Takes From The Hottest Runways
From Altuzarra and Prabal Gurung, to Michael Kors, Alice + Olivia, and Jason Wu, NYFW 2025 brought out some of the hottest and most on-trend names in couture fashion.
The week-long event kicked off on September 11, including a runway show from Simkhai that previewed a variety of diverse and dramatic looks straight from the Spring/Summer 2026 collection. Founded by Jonathan Simkhai and based in Los Angeles, Simkhai is a luxury fashion house that reflects quality couture and uncompromised craftsmanship, with designs reflecting Jonathan’s bicoastal lifestyle as well as his Middle Eastern heritage.
During his NYFW runway reign, Simkhai played with intentional silhouettes that were soft and feminine, yet modern and urban, featuring transparent lace, floral embellishments, cutting-edge outerwear, and shimmering crystal beading that sparkled with promise. Looks from Simkhai’s Spring/Summer 2026 collection are now available for pre-order.
The hits kept coming later in the week, with a dazzling double feature of Middle Eastern-inspired luxury brands Bibhu Mohapatra and Cucculelli Shaheen on September 15.
At the Bibhu Mohapatra show, South Asian and Middle Eastern influences converged to rock the NYFW runway. With a powerful palette of soft pastels, bold crimson, stunning chartreuse, and classic black and white, the runway was awash in dynamic colors and dramatic silhouettes.
Cucculelli Shaheen owned the runway while showcasing their fiery Collection Twenty-One: Flaming Hearts, a parade of mesmerizing creations that made our own hearts skip a beat. Golden metallics, jacquard prints, and luscious silks were adorned with glamorous details such as medallions, golden fringe, and intricate beadwork that turned each dress into a gorgeous piece of artwork.
Each look was a handcrafted masterpiece that told an enchanting story, and some of these Cucculelli creations were made with thousands (yes, thousands!) of hours of hand-work.
Off-White With The Slam Dunk
Switching gears to a brand that is always trendy and on-point, luxury streetwear favorite Off-White brought their creative fire to the stage once again during NYFW 2025.
Ib Kamara, successor to the late Virgil Abloh, wanted something that would be a worthy follow-up to the brand’s astonishing 2024 show that was held under the Brooklyn Bridge. Kamara ultimately nailed his mission with a runway show assembled on the rooftop basketball courts of New Design High School on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
In a joyful celebration of couture and community, models walked the courts in Off-White’s Spring 2026 collection, and a custom-made graffiti wall was painted by local artists to represent the unique flavor of each of New York’s five boroughs.
In keeping with the basketball theme, the Off-White show even included a runway appearance by Natalia Bryant, the daughter of late NBA legend Kobe Bryant.
Designer Darlings To Designer Debuts
With curated creations that are influenced by a unique blend of his American-born Texas roots and his ancestral Persian heritage, Amir Taghi’s eponymous luxury clothing brand is one to watch in the next few years.
His designs are truly unique, yet polished and professional, catering to mature women with sumptuous styles that prove fashion has no age limits. Inspired by his muse, Iranian singer and actress Googoosh, Amir Taghi’s Spring 2026 collection is marked by fine embroidery, bold prints, and unexpected color combinations that are unexpectedly delightful.
During New York Fashion Week, the pressure is on, and the stakes are high. Up-and-coming designers know this is their shot to impress, inspire, and create a buzzy collection that gets people talking. And this year, independent Middle Eastern designers took their place on the stage, alongside some of the biggest names in the biz.
Although rising luxury designer Amir Taghi presented one of his early collections at the 2014 New York Fashion Week when he was only 17 years old, he made his first appearance in over a decade at NYFW 2025.
Off The Runway
The runways may be the heart and soul of fashion week, but off the runway is where the party really rocks from dusk ‘til dawn. This year, iconic fashion houses rose to the occasion, providing VIPs with unforgettable soirees, exclusive cocktail parties, intimate dinners, and electrified events that left nothing to be desired.
And this year, oh boy, did Valentino make a splash. The talk of the town was Valentino Beauty’s once-in-a-lifetime Studio 54 reopening, an ode to the hedonistic (and highly fashionable) heyday of the ’70s, where partying took center stage. This invite-only event was hush-hush, ensuring a secretive vibe that what happens at Studio 54 stays at Studio 54.
But we do know that the event had plenty of suede, sequins, salacious gossip, and even an appearance by undisputable fashion queen Cher. It was disco meets decadence—in the best way possible.
Instagram (Valentino Beauty)
And that’s a wrap on another fabulous frolic among the who’s who at New York Fashion Week 2025. We can’t wait to see what surprises lie beyond the velvet rope in 2026.
