What sold in 2025—the clothes, the looks, and the designers who mattered—polled from 13 independent stores from across America reveals something interesting (and encouraging): Coast to coast, women are buying, wearing, and loving the work of women designers.

One of the big fashion narratives of this year might have been the merry-go-round of male creative director hires, with some notable exceptions—Louise Trotter at Bottega Veneta, Meryll Rogge at Marni, and Diotima’s Rachel Scott at Proenza Schouler. Yet the store keepers in our survey constantly mentioned women, be it established designers and labels (Phoebe Philo, Miuccia Prada’s Miu Miu, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen of The Row, Amy Smilovic of Tibi, Emily Bode of Bode New York, and Catherine Holstein’s Khaite), merging favorites (the a

See Full Page