The 2025 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Finalists Are Taking on the Challenges of Being Independent With Aplomb—Get to Know Them Here

Gabe Gordon, 26 and Timothy Gibbons, 28
From Ridgefield, CT (Gordon) and Belfast, Ireland (Gibbons), now based in Brooklyn, NY

How did you first get into fashion?
Gabe Gordon: I was always a fan of Project Runway as a little kid, I would watch it with my mom. We used to have this dog and my mom was like, ‘her brindle reminds me of a Missoni sweater,’ and that got me into sweaters and textiles and knits. I was also a painter when I was a little kid so I went to RISD and studied textile design; it was a good conversation between the two.

Timothy Gibbons: I’ve always traced my love of clothing back to Halloween when I was child. I’m Irish and that’s where Halloween was born—it’s a Celtic tradition—so from a really young age I would always make my costumes with my auntie and my extended family. I was always making stuff to the point where all the photos of me as a kid, it doesn’t matter if they were taken in October or in the height of summer, I’m in a costume of some sort. When it was time to figure out higher education I applied to Central Saint Martins in London, and I did the costume and performance course.

What made you decide to launch your label?
GG: I started while I was in school. I worked with Gauntlett Cheng one summer, and I was working at Cafe Forgot. I think they were just excited about my work and that I was a student and they offered to sell some of my pieces in the shop and it just gained a lot of eyes from their store and a few other retailers picked it up. This store in Los Angeles, Maimoun, which is also in New York now, started selling the brand and then celebrities started wearing it, the Kardashians were seen wearing my pieces… I was still a student so I was like, ‘Oh my god, what is going on!?’ Then Ssense started placing some orders. It was really fun and exciting, this challenge of navigating starting a business and not really knowing anything about it while being a student and trying to get the most out of my degree. I graduated in 2022, and immediately came to New York and was just doing this full time, but it was impossible, I had no idea what I was doing and no business background, so I took a season off to reassess. I realized I wanted to continue making this work and I met Timothy right after and it was just magic timing. We realized we wanted to do this together.