Vogue Ten of US.

Only a handful of America's designers on the rise get to compete for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Award. The prize? Money and industry mentors.

By Florence Kane. Photographed by Norman Jean Roy.

ALEJANDRO INGELMO
A fourth-generation shoemaker puts real soul in his soles.

"This was the flagship store," says Alejandro Ingelmo, flipping through an album of old black-and-white photographs of his family's shoe business in Cuba. "I look at it today and say, 'I want this.' " Ingelmo's designs—from sexy, high-concept stilettos with names such as "Terminator" to pretty pastel flats to men's metallic snakeskin sneakers—are a far cry from the sturdy wingtips on which his grandfather built an empire in pre-Castro Havana. But this tattooed designer's sole ambition is the same.

Ingelmo didn't always know he'd follow so literally in the footsteps of his forefathers (his great-grandfather was a cobbler in Spain). After the 34-year-old arrived in New York four years ago, he enrolled in interior design at Parsons. While there, Ingelmo took a shoemaking class, and his DNA caught up with him. He left school and started his collection, which was quickly picked up by Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, and Jeffrey New York. And the rest—like his family's fabled past—is history.

OBEDIENT SONS AND DAUGHTERS
A husband-and-wife design duo keeps its nouveau-preppy suiting all in the family.

The Hutson family history goes like this: Swaim, a 39-year-old North Carolina native, started a small men's line called Obedient Sons (named after a book about youth culture in America from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries) in 2002, when he was living in San Francisco. After meeting Christina, 30, in Manhattan in 2003, he moved the company there. The two were married, and soon enough they had a daughter—a sweet little girl named Lowe—and the sister line to Sons, called Daughters. So it truly is, as the Hutsons say, a mom-and-pop operation.

The two, who live in a lower Manhattan loft (where Christina tie-dyes outfits for the baby), have firmly established their look of high-waisted trousers and long blazers (for the ladies) and tapered suit trousers for men. But for spring, they ventured into pieces like pretty lace dresses and wide, wide, wide palazzo pants. "I naturally do hippie," says Christina, who grew up in the Pennsylvania countryside. That explains the counterculture slogans, like TURN ON, TUNE IN, DROP OUT, embroidered on jackets. "And he naturally goes really preppy." See the pleated linen pants (Swaim read GQ and idolized eighties tennis players like John McEnroe and Mats Wilander). "Then we combine it, and…surprise!"

IRENE NEUWIRTH
The free-spirited jeweler spreads her enthusiasm for colorful gems across the country.

She had just put on a show with her fellow Fashion Fund finalists in Pebble Beach, California, when Irene Neuwirth was approached by a woman from the audience who said, "I met you in San Francisco." Irene's reply: "I know! You bought those pink opal earrings." It's an enthusiasm for her customers (and a "scary" photographic memory) that allows Neuwirth, who's on the road 90 percent of the year meeting customers at trunk shows, to have that kind of dedication. Or what about the fact that at Pebble Beach, a key part of the Fashion Fund competition, she might have been more nervous about delivering a stunning rose-cut diamond engagement ring to an old friend who was ready to propose to a very chic young fashion editor?

Neuwirth, 33, began her line about eight years ago, and it was immediately in Barneys New York. It's an extravagant-looking (but not outrageously expensive) collection. Case in point: her dramatic fringed necklace. "I thought to myself, What can we do with these tiny 5-mm. moonstones?" says the vivacious jeweler, who swims in the ocean every morning and skateboards to her office in Venice Beach. "I decided to go crazy and drape them everywhere!" And then, just for fun, she added even tinier diamonds.

VENA CAVA
Sophie Buhai and Lisa Mayock become second-time finalists, bringing their brand of hip elegance along for the ride.

Why was there a huge pile of shoes at Vena Cava's spring presentation? It was a real jumble: lace-up pumps, studded-toe mules, strappy sandals with block heels. There was plenty of symbolism in their latest women's clothing collection's—a "celestial sportswear" ode to Egyptology—being staged on models steps away from this funny installation (fitting for their location, the Chelsea Art Museum). But the most meaningful symbol, in terms of how far the two have come, was right there in that heap. The Southern California natives, who met right before their freshman year at Parsons, set up shop together in Brooklyn, and their eclectic designs gained a following of earthy-cool girls. They were Fashion Fund finalists last year and landed a plum collaboration job (think Thom Browne for Brooks Brothers, Derek Lam and Tod's) with Via Spiga.

Another benefit of the Fund? "Meeting other young designers and joining that community," Lisa Mayock says. "We're all doing this crazy thing," continues Sophie Buhai. Which comes in handy when you need day-to-day advice, or just someone to cohost your Fashion Week after-party. Mayock and Buhai put on theirs with Sam Shipley and Jeff Halmos (who won the 2005 Fashion Fund Award when they were part of Trovata). Their hilarious invitation pictured the dainty beauties getting rowdy with the prepsters and pretending to down tall boys of Bud Light. They cheekily served the beer alongside pizza at their rooftop bash, which fellow 2007 Fund alum Scott Sternberg of Band of Outsiders was dashing up the stairs with actress Kirsten Dunst to get to.

JUAN CARLOS OBANDO
An advertising genius takes on a second job: totally self-taught designer of inventive dresses.

Say you are a creative director at an advertising firm who decides to try fashion photography on the side. How to get the beautiful dresses you want to shoot? Make them yourself! Los Angeles designer Juan Carlos Obando taught himself just how to do that by deconstructing an Alaïa jacket, a Chanel suit, and a pair of Gucci trousers (vintage he got from Cameron Silver at Decades) and stitching them back together. And as if that weren't ambitious enough, he learned sewing techniques from the instructions that came with McCall patterns. His task took about three months, and during that time, "suddenly, photography vanished, and fashion took over."

During the day, the 31-year-old Obando works—à la Mad Men—in a Century City high-rise conceiving digital-ad campaigns for the likes of Toyota's Scion and Sony Pictures. He's even used this expertise to create a chic hair-care brand called No. 4 (instant show sponsor!). But after hours—sometimes at his firm's mile-long conference table—he has been designing romantic, intricately pleated pieces, like the chiffon blouse he paired with slouchy trousers in his spring show. "The front of the pants was a size 13," says the Colombia native in his self-taught-tailor's speak. "But the back was a size 2—and it was hot!"

ALEXANDER WANG
The good-time guy is a whiz at cool-girl urban dressing.

At the end of his spring show, Alexander Wang did not take a sober bow. He did not do the old "aw shucks" routine with a half wave and a shy smile before disappearing backstage. The 24-year-old designer exuberantly skipped out on the runway as if it were the dance floor at the Lower East Side club the Annex, which he and his tribe of friends had commandeered. He had one hand on his hip, the other in the air, and spun in a way that said, "That's it! Wasn't it fun?"

The San Francisco native started his knitwear line as a sophomore at Parsons (he did internships at Derek Lam, Marc Jacobs, Vogue, and Teen Vogue). In 2007 he made it a full line of women's ready-to-wear, added some extreme shoes, and now has a T-shirt collection called T by Alexander Wang. "Fashion shouldn't be so intimidating," says Wang, sitting in his airy new offices in lower Manhattan. "You can do something directional that's still approachable and attainable." For spring, this means Miami Vice-meets-South Beach Deco pastels and athletic jersey inspired by everything from the Olympics to the wild college-spring-break culture. "It's for a girl who's provocative, who dresses as if she just threw her look together." Kind of like his friends the street-cool model Erin Wasson and the Euro It-girl Alice Dellal, with her punky haircut and nose ring. "She's a little rough around the edges." And surely one who, like Wang, knows how to have fun.

ALBERTUS SWANEPOEL
With his smart hats, fashion's favorite milliner is turning heads.

"Christian Lacroix," remembers Albertus Swanepoel, "said that the hat is the dot on the i." Swanepoel is seated in his midtown Manhattan studio, surrounded by his remarkable handiwork—beribboned felt fedoras, demure cloches, chic straw toppers. Seeing the milliner, who designs for both men and women, in his element and hearing him relate that charming adage, one is suddenly struck by a novel idea: We should all be wearing more hats!

Swanepoel, who designed an acclaimed clothing collection in his native South Africa, was a glovemaker after he came to New York in 1989. To supplement that line during the warmer months, he took millinery classes at FIT (he trained with Janine Galimard, who had worked with Balenciaga and the famous New York milliner Tatiana du Plessix). His collection Albertus Swanepoel is available at stores like Barneys New York, Louis Boston, and Paul Smith, and Swanepoel has become the man designers go to for their runway chapeaux (see Proenza Schouler's superdirectional beaver cloches from fall 2007, this autumn's feathered riding fedoras at Carolina Herrera, and fellow Fashion Fund finalist Alexander Wang's latex caps for spring).

The soft-spoken designer jokingly calls hats the "orphan" accessories and isn't sure they'll ever become de rigueur the way they were during the first half of last century. But his designs are certainly enough to convince us they should. After all, who doesn't dot her i's?

RICHARD CHAI
This young industry vet has had a hand in some major designers' collections. Now he's perfecting his own.

How's this for a résumé? Before launching his women's collection four years ago, Richard Chai interned at Geoffrey Beene under then-design assistant Alber Elbaz. After graduating from Parsons, Chai studied in Paris and sketched for Lanvin (pre-Elbaz). He went on to become an assistant designer at Armani Exchange, then a designer at DKNY. As Marc Jacobs's design director, he launched the Marc by Marc Jacobs men's collection before becoming creative design director at Tse. Phew—try reciting that back!

"I always had the dream of having my own line," Chai says, taking a break from preparing his spring collection. "But I think it was important for me to gain that knowledge, to learn those things it takes to become a designer." Chai is very conscious of what he absorbed at each job (Alber taught him integrity and how to truly craft clothes, Donna about a woman's form, Marc how to put a fresh spin on something already familiar). Everything has in some way informed his own "deceptively simple" work, whether it was Chai's hand-sewn, origami-patterned pieces in his debut or tailored-yet-diaphanous ones in an "optimistic" color palette in his spring show. In the audience? Two-time Fashion Fund nominee Phillip Lim, who, even though his own show was a mere two hours later, had come to see his friend Richie's collection.

ORGANIC
John Patrick proves that what's good for the Earth can be great for fashion.

These are the global concepts whirling around in John Patrick's head: Peruvian cotton that grows purple and green naturally…goatherding societies in Mongolia…Swiss clean-textile technologies. And this brain of his is the one that also begat his collection of spot-on men's and women's clothes. "I'm interested in making things that are young and sexy," Patrick says over lunch in a Manhattan macrobiotic restaurant. So his ethically produced, sustainable line defies the crunchy conception of how a (for lack of a better word) "green" collection is expected to look. For example, Patrick has crafted a perfect floral camisole (made of waste from cotton production), a recycled-polyester pleated trouser, and a Victorian-style surplus-cotton blouse for spring. He does it all out of an abandoned warehouse in Albany, New York (he grows flax in the backyard of his farmhouse nearby), and produces most of the line in the United States. And even though he may be one of the most knowledgeable mavericks in the eco movement (he has actually met the farmers in Peru who grow that cotton), Patrick isn't one to preach. "It's not cool to be radical about this stuff," he says. "It's cool to just do it and show the ladies who like Chanel that they can also love Organic. And they love it because it's beautiful."

JASON WU
He's a man of many talents: painting, doll design, and, most important, creating ladylike fashion.

Earlier this year, Jason Wu made a trip to Tokyo to launch his collection there. "I went to the Park Hyatt hotel for a drink, and it had the best view. You look down at the city and see little blips. At any time, there are a billion lights all over the place. The colors are really cool." Those are the twinkling hues—yellow, fuchsia, royal blue, and other jewel tones—that were central to Wu's recent spring show.

Wu has been designing clothing since he was sixteen—but not for whom you think. His first foray into fashion was dreaming it up for dolls when he started freelancing for a toy company from his dorm at boarding school. First he worked for free, then for $500 a month. "That can go a long way for a kid in Windsor, Connecticut," Wu says. "It's a lot of Chinese takeout or pizza!" He eventually became a partner, got his very own self-titled line and did well enough to start a ready-to-wear label (for life-size women, this time). "I never would have written that plan down on paper: At sixteen, do dolls, and then fund own fashion company," says Wu, 26, a former intern for Narciso Rodriguez who has been sketching women's clothing since he was an art-loving child in Taiwan. But—to the delight of uptown girls who also wear Oscar and Carolina, and starlets like Leighton Meester and Gretchen Mol—here he is, turning out ultrafeminine collections of nipped-waist raw-silk sheaths, floral prints (derived from his own paintings), and party dresses. Same passion—different sort of doll.

"Just the Ten of Us" has been edited for Style.com; the complete story appears in the November 2008 issue of Vogue.