Black in Fashion Council's New York Fashion Week Discovery Showroom: 3 Emerging Brands We Admire

The Black in Fashion Council presented its Spring/Summer 2024 discovery showroom supporting ten emerging Black and African diaspora designers. The blooming New York Fashion Week fixture, founded by The Cut’s editor-in-chief Lindsay Peoples and public relations specialist Sandrine Charles, ran for five days, amplifying the voice and businesses of underrepresented designers. The BIFC showcase is a hidden gem of Fashion Week. Teen Vogue spoke to three designers about their collections.

Khoi, a sculptural jewelry brand by Kayey Rida, is Rida’s latest in her long line of artistic mediums. With a full-time job, she launched three previous collections: The Icon, Nour, and A Masked Identity.

When she was laid off from her corporate job, Rida’s latest collection, Rafia, was born. The pieces symbolize her bifocal vision of what was to come. Would it be a cage or would it be a nest in which she could grow? The perspective is a bit of both, hence the name Rafia, the raw material from which one can make either.

The nest portion of Rafia brings warmth with its organic softness and layered design. Like bangles, necklaces, and earrings, the imperfect, different-sized circle motif is particularly poignant and unique. On the other hand, the cage takes a more heavy-handed approach, is less delicate, and the larger structural pieces are more geometric and sculptural.

Every single piece Khoi makes is under $100. The bendable, solid, 18k gold-plated brass pieces make them easy to play with and customize. The Oona earring alone can be worn four ways and counting: full hoop, half hoop, ear cuff, and arm cuff. “I feel jewelry should be accessible, so I don’t need to put a 10,000 profit margin on it,” Rida says. “We’ll do just enough to keep the business going and funding that creativity.”