Bode

Because so much of what you are paying for cannot be reordered. Bode builds clothing from antique textiles and newly-made traditional textiles, and a garment cut from a one-off vintage quilt or cloth is, by nature, close to unrepeatable. The price reflects the sourcing of old materials and the hand techniques used to turn them into wearable pieces, rather than the cost of mass-produced fabric.

If you value a piece for its story and singularity, it is one of the brand's strongest arguments for itself. Bode launched in 2016 with a collection made entirely of antique textiles, explicitly for the sake of storytelling and preservation in American menswear. A quilt jacket carries the history of the cloth it was cut from, so you are buying something closer to a wearable artefact than a seasonal trend piece.

Bode is known for bringing historical craft into modern fashion — using quilting, mending, patchwork, sashiko, boro and appliqué in contemporary garments. The brand turns the techniques and textiles of the past into present-day clothing, which is why its pieces feel collected rather than simply manufactured. That marriage of old handwork and new silhouettes is its signature.

She is the founder of the brand, which she launched in 2016. A landmark moment for her: Emily Adams Bode Aujla was the first female designer to show at New York Fashion Week: Men's, the event's dedicated menswear shows. The label carries her name and her sensibility for antique textiles and traditional craft runs through everything it makes.

It began firmly in menswear — its 2016 debut was a menswear collection built from antique textiles — but it has since broadened. Bode launched its first womenswear line in 2023. So while its roots and its early acclaim are in men's clothing, the antique-textile aesthetic now extends to women as well.

A lot, quickly. In 2019 alone Bode was an LVMH Prize finalist, named CFDA Emerging Designer of the Year, and recognised on the Business of Fashion 500 and Forbes 30 Under 30. It went on to win the Woolmark Prize's Karl Lagerfeld Award for Innovation in 2020, CFDA Menswear Designer of the Year in 2021 and 2022, and a Cooper Hewitt National Design Award. For a brand founded in 2016, that is a remarkably fast climb.

Bode is an American clothing company, founded in 2016 by Emily Adams Bode Aujla. It opened its first retail store in 2019 and keeps office space at 161 Water Street. So it is a young, New York–rooted label — its whole rise has happened within the last decade.

They are among the traditional techniques Bode draws on. Sashiko and boro are part of the same family of historical methods the brand uses — alongside quilting, patchwork, mending and appliqué — to make modern clothing from older or traditional cloth. When you see them referenced, they signal the hand-stitched, mend-and-preserve approach that defines the label rather than a factory finish.

In a sense, yes — that intent is written into the brand. Bode's founding collection was made entirely of antique textiles for the explicit purpose of storytelling and preservation in American menswear. By rehoming and rewearing historic cloth instead of letting it sit unused, the brand frames each garment as keeping a piece of textile history in circulation.