The fashionably fabulous Rachel Scott
J’can designer CFDA-nominated alongside vets Marc Jacobs, Tory Burch
Published:Sunday | September 22, 2024 | 1:28 PMOmar Tomlinson - Contributor
Stylishly sauntering into the big leagues of the international fashion industry, just three years after launching her label Diotima, Jamaican fashion designer Rachel Scott is having another major moment. A joyous Scott now finds herself a nominee for the American Womenswear Designer of the Year honours at next month’s Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) Fashion Awards ceremony.
The rapidly ascendant designer is up against Marc Jacobs, Thom Browne and Tory Burch, who, separately, front their well-renowned eponymous labels. Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, co-leads of the Proenza Schouler label, round out the fifth nomination slot in this designer category.
“I was working at my studio in Chinatown in New York,” the label founder and creative director revealed to The Sunday Gleaner of the moment she discovered she had made the prestigious shortlist of the CFDA’s class of 2024 contenders. “I honestly thought they made a mistake at first, but it’s truly an honour.” “My phone started going off. I’m actually not sure who called first [but] the first person I shared the news with was Diotima’s stylist Marika-Ella Ames,” the still ebullient Scott recounted.
Her current CFDA nomination marks the second time the Jamaican has been recognised by industry peers, as she was in the running and emerged triumphant as last year’s Emerging Designer of the Year. As the days begin to whittle away towards the expectantly glitzy, celebrity-packed awards night set for October 28 at the American Museum of National History in Manhattan, Scott is magnanimous of the awardees she’s rooting for. There are her designer friends, Henry Zankov and Raul Lopez, vying for Emerging Designer of the Year and Accessories Designer of the Year, respectively. She is, too, a big fan of Willy Chavarria, who is up for Menswear Designer.
The nominations announcement, which came a week ago, was akin to icing on the cake for Scott. Just days before, she debuted her collection titled ‘Déjà Vu’ during New York Fashion Week to critical praise. American Vogue scribe Laia Garcia-Furtado, in her review of the designer’s latest, hailed “it has been exciting to see how she has slowly and carefully expanded the diversity of her offerings while fine-tuning her design vocabulary”, while The New York Times chief fashion critic Vanessa Friedman generously praised her collection as “a star-making show”, and Harper’s Bazaar writer Leah Rose Chernikoff raved “a standout of the entire week, Rachel Scott’s spring/Summer 2025 collection for Diotima had a room full of editors mentally placing preorders”.
For the 40-year-old Caribbean designer, who explained that her new island-inspired collection evokes “memories of revivalist ritual dances by the banks of roaring rivers, scenes of Sunday church in the rolling hills and dancehall street parties [that] meld into a singular vision,” she is proud of the organic growth of the label she boldly founded at the height of the global pandemic.
“We have really developed and expanded our language since launching,” Scott told The Sunday Gleaner. “In the beginning, I tried to work within existing codes that reference Jamaica without being too literal. Now I feel free to experiment in silhouette, techniques and colour while still being grounded in our very specific aesthetic language.”
Editor's Note: A previous version of this story stated that the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) Fashion Awards ceremony takes place on October 24. The event takes place on October 28.