A moodboard propped up in Snow Xue Gao’s store on Bowery featured a collage of enduring 1980s and ’90s power suiting references. They come from a time when layering and three-piece suits reigned supreme, but Gao, who spends most of her time in the shop, is aware that’s not quite how her customers approach their outfits these days. Therefore, she has some modern-day suggestions for them instead.
Outerwear and tailoring have been the throughline of Gao’s collections for the last nine years—likely spurred on by a formative moment when Rihanna wore a navy pinstripe jacket from her Parsons graduate collection. (A picture of the star in said outfit is proudly displayed on the shop wall.) For fall 2026, key warm weather pieces included cloud-soft fuzzy coats with shawl collars and satin lining in wool-made fur (more sustainable than plastic-based alternatives). Jenna Ortega is already a notable fan.
In the reference imagery, peeks of plaid and tweed blazers underneath slouchy outerwear had caught the designer’s attention when flipping through old magazines—but the Snow Xue Gao girl of today is more likely to team her structured wool coat with a printed cardigan or mandarin collar T-shirt for practicality.
For one-and-done jackets, there were sharp styles with nipped-in, almost-hourglass construction, reminiscent of blazers once worn by Karen Mulder and Janet Jackson. The idea is that Gao’s shoppers could wear them either with their own jeans for a relaxed approach, or with tailored trousers from the collection for something more polished. “People always say my tailoring makes them look more reliable when they’re at work,” the designer said, laughing.
Gao also wanted to make the kind of elegant draping associated with a bygone era of daywear feel intuitive and easy, hence gray and cream wool coats with built-in blanket scarves, and trousers featuring asymmetric overlays and neat little mini skirts that tie at the waist.
To celebrate the collection’s unveiling, the designer was getting ready to open the doors to her shop and invite friends of the brand and local customers to come by, try on pieces, and have their own lookbook-style image snapped by a photographer. To take home, as a thanks for their support, each would receive one of her popular knitted hoodie-hat-balaclava-bonnet hybrid accessories—a godsend for this unbearably cold New York winter. “I’m all about where fashion meets function,” she said.
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