Christopher John Rogers is back.
The designer hasn’t shown on-calendar for five years, and it’s been almost two years since he staged his last runway show. But he never left the fashion scene. Back in September 2023, Rogers took a trip to Paris to show his pre-fall 2024 collection and expose the brand to buyers beyond the States. In September 2024, the brand launched its first eyewear collection in collaboration with Andy Wolf. And in October, he launched a sell-out collaboration with J Crew that caused a stir at the Vogue offices. (“It was so frustrating,” Vogue social media manager Taylor Lashley quipped during our studio visit. Rogers laughed and asked why — we explained it sold out too quickly to get our hands on a golden barn jacket or red vinyl coat.)
If it’s been a busy year, you wouldn’t know it from the atmosphere at the CJR studio in Downtown Manhattan, three days out from tonight’s show at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. When we visit, casting is in full swing, as is hair and makeup testing. Songs from Summer Vee’s ‘Judas’ to Jitwam’s ‘Trust’ and Dan Kye’s ‘Focus’ emanate from the studio speakers, encapsulating the (relatively) chill energy in the space. (Many of the tracks’ artworks are just as colourful as Rogers’s designs. A coincidence, I’m sure, but a fortuitous touch nonetheless.)
Models are sprawled across a sofa and a lounge chair upholstered in the designer’s signature gradient dot print, their platform Uggs contrasting with the rainbow of Louboutins strewn across the black and white striped carpet. As they take turns strutting towards the CJR team sitting in another corner of the room, Rogers sits on an office chair, busy on his laptop, glancing often at his potential models. A colleague passes him a Blue Bottle coffee.
As his business partner Christina Ripley heads up the casting (“she’s my right hand — and my right brain,” Rogers says), I follow him behind the curtain, where much of the new collection is hanging on racks, ready for tonight’s show. The team is busy cutting and sewing. We dip into Rogers’s office, the season’s mood board tilted against the back wall. He places his coffee cup alongside a half-finished Dunkin’ iced latte.
This season, Rogers is showing his most personal collection yet, titled ‘015: Exhale’. “There’s never really an overarching theme, but this collection feels the truest to me as a person than it ever has,” he tells me. “Things feel more grown up, they feel more resolved. We’ve always been intentional with the things that we do, but I think even more so this season.” For this collection, he took inspiration from Spanish artist Angela de la Cruz and Californian designer Dorothy O’Hara.
The designer no longer feels like he needs to perform. “I think there are a lot of expectations for who I am as a brand, how we should show up, the things that people expect, and, I guess it’s a hackney term, but it’s the idea of house codes,” he says. “I didn’t think about that at all when making this collection.” Instead, the collection is a reflection of Rogers’s personal taste as he’s gotten older, what his friends are wearing, things that have (to date) been missing from the CJR repertoire. “The collection just feels like an exhale for me,” he says. “I’m not holding my breath anymore.”
It’s also a push back against the grain. “We could wax poetic about it, but it feels like there’s this pushing of sameness,” Rogers says. Not at a CJR show. “There’s lots of different types of people that are represented in the shows from an aesthetic point of view, and lots of different types of silhouettes and texture and references — or not referencing,” he says. “It feels modern and feels like the world that I want to live in and the world that we do live in. Showing now feels like the right time to do that.”
Coming together
It was Covid that initiated Rogers’s five-year NYFW hiatus. “It allowed us to have some space to think about how we wanted to move forward,” he says.
Having worked at DVF on knitwear with Jonathan Saunders, Rodgers always had an affinity for knits. The Christopher John Rogers brand launched knitwear during the pandemic, and there were no runways to show it. So they went to market during pre-season — and quickly realised it was good for business.
“We continued on that cadence and found that stores allocated bigger budgets to so. It landed at a time where most brands were delivering commercial products or re-cuts. We were delivering more fashion-forward or directional pieces,” Rogers explains. “Pieces were selling out quite quickly. And stores love that.”
It may have been good for business, but Rogers began to miss the communal aspect of showing at fashion week. (Alongside his market cadence, he’s shown off-schedule, most recently in April 2023.) “Recently, especially in New York, it’s felt like it’s becoming more underground, more on the fringe, in terms of the designers that are present and showing here and really making a statement,” he says. “I really have been missing presenting work with my peers and speaking to the time that we are in, and sharing my perspective on that in unison with others.”
NYFW attendees are glad to see him back. “His colourful, beautiful expression has been missed,” says Julie Gilhart, the former long-time fashion director of Barneys who has since founded consultancy Gilhart Co.
Amid the chaos we’re living in, Rogers also feels a responsibility to his community and clients to showcase work that’s intrinsically himself. “It underscores a need for people in positions of privilege that have audiences that look to their work to continue to be the most distilled version of themselves,” he says. “This season, I’m not performing being Christopher. I’m being Christopher. And I think that comes through in the clothes, and people can feel that when they’re looking at the collection or wearing the pieces — I’m continuing to give people the tools to express themselves. That’s really what I love to do.”
Growing up and building out
In the lead-up to the show, Rogers is reconciling what he posits as a sort of juncture for the brand. “Two weeks ago, when we were getting the pieces in, I was freaking out a little bit,” Rogers says. He interrupts himself, and says that, post-shoot, it does indeed feel like CJR — but an evolution of such.
The brand is known for bright, bright colours. They’re not going anywhere — though this season, they’re more off-kilter, more “in-between”, he says. Fixtures include caper, a rich green (like a caper); sarsaparilla, a red-slanted brown-ish hue; alongside everyone’s favourite, oxblood. “It’s these rich, sophisticated colours that we’ve done dabs of in the past, but are really dominant this season,” Rogers says. “They feel fresh.”
The direction of the clothes is also new. “As much as I’m excited by a gown or something more traditionally high octane, this time around I’m also interested in a shirt and a pant and a sweater on the runway — this idea of someone real and a look that’s quite easy,” he explains. In line with this shift, this season, the brand moved some of its tailoring to Italy (including for the caper green Japanese wool jacket).
It isn’t just a response to Rogers’s own personal taste, though it undoubtedly stems from it. The move also aligns with his vision for the brand’s next stage, where the goal is to be more self-reliant, the designer says. At the end of 2023, the brand saw wholesale not working for it in the way that it once did. “Growing our direct-to-consumer [business], maybe a venture into accessories at some point, diversifying product categories, is really important for me,” Rogers says.
His second major goal is to be more demonstrative about the world the brand is building. “People who have a natural inclination for the brand can see that already for themselves. They know how to wear the pieces and break it down. They know how to incorporate it into their day-to-day life,” Rogers explains. “But I’m interested in maybe bringing in people who see it in the periphery and are interested, but don’t know how to engage with it.” He thinks that by demonstrating how to wear the CJR brand, he’ll bring in more customers. “Growing in that way is really important to me.”
Tonight’s show offered a first blueprint. On the runway, one model swung a striped long sleeve tee over her shoulder; another tied a striped jumper around her hips, peeking out under a tailored suit. And, of course, there were big, beautiful, bubbly gowns. The crowd bolstered the sartorial inspiration, many an attendee donning a CJR piece (or two). It illustrated Rogers’s point that those in the know are already well aware of the brand’s everyday suitability.
As we were leaving the studio earlier this week, Berlioz’s ‘NYC in 1940’ was playing in the background. Rogers, it feels, is ready to outfit New York City in 2025 — for the bustling streets just as much as the city’s evening haunts.
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