In the summer of revolving creative directorships, it seems that not even burgeoning labels are immune from the trend. Just two years after tech entrepreneur Nina Khosla launched Fforme with designer Paul Helbers as its creative director, today it was announced that the Dutch designer had parted ways with the label. But his exit will not add to the growing list of fashion houses currently hiring. Frances Howie, a designer who was the design director at Stella McCartney until 2021, has been named its new creative director and has already begun working on the next collection, which will be shown during New York Fashion Week in February of 2025.
After showing the first two collections in a presentation format at Chelsea galleries, Fforme debuted on the runway for fall 2023, a show that was one of the season’s most anticipated and talked about. It was Helbers’s irrefutable talent and painstaking attention to detail that propelled the brand, naturally drawing a list of well-heeled women and men to its orbit. At last season’s show, the front row included Carmen Dell’Orefice, Morgan Spector, and Annabelle Dexter-Jones.
The question remains: When a label is still nascent and figuring out its way, what does a change at the top bring? Will it continue to build upon the foundation set by the one who got it off the ground, or will it redirect to fully reflect the values of the new designer? We’ll have to wait until February to find out.
