How American Designers Are Making It Work in 2025

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What does it mean to be an American designer right now? That was the central question that Who What Wear Associate Features Editor Ana Escalante set out to explore in her piece "Invest In America: Meet the Political and Creative Forces Driving American Fashion's Evolution." In diving into this topic, Escalante spoke with American designers and fashion experts from marginalized communities about their perspectives on the state of the fashion industry under the current administration. They shared their concerns about the current climate, what consumers can do to support independent and American brands, and ultimately, their hopes for the industry's future.

For this episode of the Who What Wear podcast, Escalante sits down with Editorial Director Lauren Eggertsen to discuss everything she learned from these interviews while also sharing snippets of the conversations she had with industry heavy hitters, including Business of Fashion Senior Correspondent Sheena Butler-Young and designers Jackson Weiderhoeft, Sergio Hudson, and Allina Liu.

For excerpts from the conversation, scroll below.

Ana Escalante: You recently worked on anamazing piece for Who What Wear that went into our Spring Issue, which was called "Invest In America: Meet the Political and Creative Forces Driving American Fashion's Evolution." Can you walk me through a bit of the inspiration behind this piece and why you wanted to explore this topic, specifically?

Lauren Eggersten: When we think about the modern-day fashion industry from an American perspective, a lot of our gaze has often shifted to the designers of Europe and the luxury conglomerates who live in these massive corporations and these massive design houses that have so much history, but truly, there's so much homegrown talent.

Of course, there are designers that we love and celebrate every day, but in the current retail, political, and economic state of the United States right now, it's challenging to be an independent designer. Especially who operates with most of your production or most of your operations inside the United States.