Elena Velez


Elena Velez is an American fashion designer and creative from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, based in New York City. Her work is known for its synthesis of metalsmith and high fashion and has been featured in the V&A Museum and Barbican Centre. Velez was a semi-finalist for the 2024 LVMH prize and the CFDA's 2022 Emerging Designer of the Year.
Described by Vogue as "explosive and aggressive", Velez's work has been inspired by the craftsmanship of the American Rust Belt as well as reactionary aesthetics. Themes in her work include deconstruction, "apocalyptic anti-heroines", and alternative construction methods, which include salvaged materials. Velez coins her visual identity as "aggressively delicate" and anti-fragile.
WWW Official Site

Early life and education

Of Puerto Rican heritage but raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Velez claims in recent interviews that the "industrial" nature of her "nontraditional upbringing" as the only child to a single mother who is a ship's captain on the Great Lakes influenced her current artistic identity, which she says draws heavily on "the relationship between femininity and force". With a beginning interest in design from early childhood, the first documentation of her developments appear in local TV news as a teenager in 2010. In 2023 Velez was profiled in the New York Times detailing her difficulties in growing a brand without private wealth or industry connections.
Velez studied at Parsons Paris from 2013 to 2015 and graduated from Parsons School of Design in 2018 with a BFA in fashion design and minor in creative entrepreneurship. Additionally in 2020 she received a Graduate Diploma in fashion design from Central Saint Martins in London. Her BFA thesis collection was shown at VFILES Season 10 Runway, and London Fashion Week, as a guest of the Swedish Fashion Council.

Career

In 2019 Velez's work was exhibited as a Teen Vogue 2019 Generation Next designer curated by Editor in Chief of Vogue Anna Wintour. Her work has received coverage in Business of Fashion, Women's Wear Daily, WGSN, and other publications.
In February, 2021, Elena Velez Industries Inc. was founded with investment support from venture capital firms Gener8tor, and CSA Partners.
Velez has dressed celebrities including Taylor Swift, Solange Knowles, Ethel Cain, Julia Fox, Charli XCX, Eartheater, Doja Cat, Grimes, Anna Delvey, Teyana Taylor, Tinashe, Jenna Ortega, and others.
In 2022, Velez won American Emerging Designer of the Year at the CFDA Fashion Awards. In March 2023, she was inducted as a member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America.
Velez attended the 2023 Met Gala as a guest of Balenciaga. For the occasion, she created a crackle medium screen print ink-gown for the artist Sasha Gordon as a nod to Gordon's painting career.
In February 2024 Velez hosted controversial EVSALON001, which drew on "antiheroic female archetypes" from Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind. ''The Washington Post criticized the salon as "problematic" and "dangerously cheesy" and alleged that Velez "aligns herself with the unsavory flavor of a tendentious downtown New York crowd, whose podcasters, media personalities and fashion and art-adjacent figures rose to prominence under the aegis of 'Dimes Square'". The salon garnered Velez the nickname of "Fashion's first post-woke designer" according to The Free Press.
Velez is alleged to be associated with scenes connected to Peter Thiel and the new libertarian and "tech right", collaborating with digital art collective Remilia Corporation in 2025 .'' The scene is known for its "reactionary politics and associations with Peter Thiel." Velez was quoted in The New Yorker commenting on heterodox downtown event space
In 2025 Velez collaborated with controversial streaming platform OnlyFans and designed the costumes for The National Ballet of Canada.

Awards

  • Inaugural Fellow of the Jayaram Law Creative Legal Alliance, New York, 2026
  • Recipient, Joe & Clara Tsai Foundation; 2025 Revitalize Brooklyn Grant, New York, 2025
  • Semi Finalist, LVMH Prize, Paris, 2024The Dazed 100 List curated by Ib Kamara, 2023
  • Semi Finalist, Emerging Designer/ Brand of the Year; Latin American Fashion Awards, 2023 50 Women In Power list by WWD, New York, 2023 Elle Magazine's 2023 Women of Impact Award, WA D.C., 2023
  • Winner, Fashion Trust US Sustainability Award, New York 2023
  • Winner, Best Emerging Designer; CFDA Fashion Awards, New York, 2022
  • Winner, CFDA Vogue Fashion Fund Award, New York, 2022
  • Recipient, IMG Fashion Alliance Grant, New York, 2022
  • Winner,Teen Vogue Generation Next, New York, 2019
  • Winner,VFILES Season 10 Runway, New York, 2018
  • Finalist, Swedish Fashion Council CTF Award, London 2018

Museum Shows & Acquisitions

Collections

  • YR007 - Badland, Sep 16. 2025
  • YR006 - Leech, Feb 9. 2025
  • YR005 - La Pucelle, Sep 10. 2024
  • YR004 - The Longhouse, Sep. 2023YR003 - How's My Driving?, Feb. 2023YR002 - In Glass, Sep. 2022YR001 - Maidenhood And Its Labors, Feb. 2022YR000 - Rinascita, Sep. 2021
  • Homecoming, 2019Vessel, 2019_And Carry On, 2018

Salons