Elena Velez is an American fashion designer currently based in NYC. In 2022 Velez took home the CFDA’s award for American Emerging Designer of the Year. Operating in collaboration with local artisans, the label gives pride of place to regional craftsmanship, paying respect to its locale—and to sustainability—by integrating found, salvaged, or site-specific elements into its collections. Each piece is a study in carefully balanced proportion and form, where gathers, asymmetrical lines, and integrated corsets are harmonized to yield silhouettes that are at once stately and voluptuous.