Tawfik Mounayer at his studio on the Lower East Side

If you look hard enough you can always find some imaginative fashion buried in the cracks of New York’s pavements. Most fashion editors seem to miss it, flying in briefly twice a year to see Donna, Ralph, Calvin and co at New York Fashion Week….These days New York’s fashion scene is looking a lot more interesting and a new school of designers are injecting some much-needed individuality into the sportswear mix….Alice Roi, Dugg by Douglas Hobbs, Keanan Duffty, Tawfik Mounayer and Kathy Kemp are five young designers who are on the road to fashion’s forefront.

It’s not hard to put on a fashion show with a little help from your friends. At least not for Tawfik Mounayer, whose happy disposition ensures him many friends in high places. In fact, his posse of fashionable and creative supporters helped him successfully stage his first collection. Months prior to his show, Mounayer was pulling many all-nighters in between a full-time job to sew clothes. His determination paid off with fashion’s major players in attendance, including the legendary fashion editor Polly Mellen, who pulled him aside after the show to assure him, sternly, that “fashion needed him”. Looking at his current collection for Spring/Summer 2002 it’s easy to understand Mellen’s enthusiasm. Inspired by the ex Mrs Stallone and Brigitte “Red Sonja” Neilsen – that is to say, a confident woman with a touch of Viking – the wearable pieces are strong and defined but also pretty. Using mostly natural fabrics such as linens and cottons Mounayer chose primary colours contrasted with blacks and whites. There are screen-printed linen dresses and skirts, laced leather and sheer chiffon skirts, layered tulle tanks, hand-knit cotton camisoles and my favourite – a lace-up unitard. Despite growing success Mounayer remains humbly grateful to be part of what he says is a “new generation of New York fashion designers”. His next ambition? To begin a “new American tradition of fashion”.