Zoe Whalen

Zoe Whalen is an artist and apparel designer based in Brooklyn, NY. Since the fall of 2021, she has been operating an eponymous label, Zoe Gustavia Anna Whalen, under which she has showcased four collections during New York Fashion Week (2022–24). Her work has been featured and reviewed by publications such as Vogue, i-D, The New York Times, The Cut (New York Magazine), Cultured Magazine, Purple and more.

Her practice seeks to embody the longevity of well-made garments, guided by a larger movement towards slowness and craft. The forms of her work are sculptural and evocative, influenced by historic body-modifying undergarments and medieval silhouettes and blurring the boundaries between clothing, art object, performance and spectacle. She seeks to imbue each piece of clothing with the history of the textile that came before it, working primarily with secondhand or antique materials and prolonging the life of discarded and undervalued linens, tablecloths and quilts.

With a clothing construction background of 15-plus years and an education in womenswear and knitwear (BFA, Fashion Institute of Technology) as well as two post-graduate degrees in fashion design (Central Saint Martins, Parsons), she has worked primarily at the intersection of art and fashion with brands like Eckhaus Latta and BLESS. Whalen has a deep understanding of the foundational craft of garment making and teaches with a process-driven curriculum. Her aim is to help each individual student better understand their own unique aesthetic and artistic vision while guiding them in the process of translating their ideas into 3D, wearable objects.