Diotima Fall 2025: Finding Elegance in the Everyday
“After the election, I was thinking about women, especially Black women, how our stories are really reduced and really flat, and there’s never a lot of nuance or complexity or sensuality,” Diotima designer Rachel Scott said at her intimate fall 2025 presentation Monday afternoon high up in an office building in FiDi as the sunset cast an orange glow over the Hudson River.
“I kept thinking about this figure of the matriarch and that she’s quite misunderstood,” Scott explained of the inspiration for her alluring new collection, which conjured emotion without sacrificing wearability.
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She built on her craftsy brand’s use of doilies and crochet by bringing in new elements from the domestic sphere — the quilting of a satin bedspread onto a black evening capelet and skirt, for example, and pile embroidery onto crinkle chiffon dresses worn with mesh piano shawls.
Long, chiffon chemises embellished with black rose embroidery were worn over dark bloomers, “the original feminist undergarments,” as she said, or over long pants, looked fab and modern.
Scott continued to fine-tune her tailoring, with strong shouldered blazers with “anti-epaulettes” as she called them, crafted of macramé, and easy trousers with elastic-backed waists. Some of the tailoring was styled with soft layers, a crystal mesh piano shawl at the shoulders and at the hips, for example, or a pale yellow fringed and crocheted dress and glam looped fringe collar.
The designer worked in Harris tweed, a material she said she loves for its connection to the U.K. and her homeland of Jamaica, but stripped it from its masculine connotations, fashioning a beautiful cocoa-colored dress draped at the shoulder, open at the side, and falling into a long skirt.
Competing for the Woolmark Prize opened her eyes to working with wool for her signature crochet and mesh knits, on cardigans and to craft bomber jackets with looped fringe collars, all of which helped adapt her Caribbean-born aesthetic to the winter season. She also showed two styles of shoes that she’s producing in Italy.
Scott said business is going well with her U.S. partners, and that she is expanding in Japan and the Middle East. She also continues to make moves on the global fashion prize circuit; Diotima was recently named a finalist for a Fashion Trust U.S. award.
Launch Gallery: Diotima Fall 2025 Ready-to-Wear Collection
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