Emily Dawn Long Spring 2027: The Crack of Dawn

by · WWD
Emily Dawn Long Spring 2027 Ready-to-Wear CollectionMaddy Rotman/Courtesy of Emily Dawn Long

What a year it’s been for multihyphenate designer Emily Dawn Long.

Since establishing her label in 2019, the designer has quickly become not only a Dimes Square darling but one of the fashion industry’s, too. She’s nominated for not only the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund but also the CFDA Award for Google American emerging designer of the year.

It’s for good reason. Dawn Long is creating clothes that range from cheeky sloganed vintage T-shirts and novelty knits to full-out silk dresses and coolly elevated workwear, with a majority of prices sitting below $1,000 (select ready-to-wear and furniture styles in leather or suede sit between $2,000 and $3,000).

Who’s wearing it? Everyone from Justin Bieber, Sara Pidgeon (who modeled in her fall look book) and Kaia Gerber to Alix Earle, Zendaya, Zoë Kravitz and many, many more.

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The designer also held a pop-up in Paris in the spring (where some styles sold out in two days); expanded her Lower East Side headquarters over the summer, and this week presented on the official calendar during NYFW.

In place of a runway show, Dawn Long took over the downtown eatery Bridges for a Saturday afternoon viewing of her short collection film, “The Crack of Dawn.” Her collection, which she’s calling a capsule, matched the playful, vibrant energy of the event — which featured popcorn, beverages and branded merch spanning from baseball caps to fans and lighters — and film. The latter centered around a present-day, off-beat heist around New York City with plenty of butt-crack-revealing looks, a central theme of her “Southern Cleavage”-titled spring line.

During a walk-through following the event, Dawn Long explained her collection was an “exploration of crack meets ruffles.”

Cheeky looks quite literally were seen in a sexy yet playful purple minidress with ruffled edges that extended down and wrapped around one leg like a garter belt, as well as in jeans while references to a paparazzi photo of Bruce Willis or Leo DiCaprio in the film “Romeo + Juliet” were on Hawaiian print shirts for both men and women.

The exploration of folded fabrications of artists Petra Blaisse and Torbjørn Vejvi resulted in striking silk dresses, and an everyday waffled knit featured a frozen ruffle in motion print from a painting which she commissioned from friend and artist Ian Stanton. Cockades, coated on both sides with a rubber tree sap from Brazil, adorned subtly sexy cutout knit dresses and colorful-yet-earthy-yet-workwear barn jackets, worn with suede trousers or classic jeans.

“I mean this in a funny way, but I make hats but I can also do gowns and furniture,” she said, pointing to each category, which now includes footwear via a debut pair of leather slides. The sky’s the limit and Dawn Long should keep rising with it.

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