Monse

Kim and Garcia completed their Oscar de la Renta creative work in February 2026 and moved to Monse as their sole principal fashion focus. The new phase concentrates their design attention around one house and coincides with direct retail growth, closer client contact and an expanded feminine and eveningwear vocabulary.

Monse released a four-item Wicked: For Good capsule in November 2025. The project connected the brand’s fashion vocabulary with a film property through a compact retail collaboration.

Monse reworked Sperry’s Authentic Original boat shoe into platform-lug and translucent-jelly forms for its Spring/Summer 2026 runway. The collaboration reached retail in March 2026 and became the label’s clearest footwear-category expansion to date.

Monse designed the bright-blue flight suits worn by the full six-person Blue Origin NS-31 crew on 14 April 2025, with Lauren Sánchez participating in the design context. The flame-resistant stretch-neoprene uniforms were created for a suborbital mission and extended Monse’s uniform language into a functional special project.

Monse opened its first permanent retail space at 15 Rivington Street in New York by early May 2025. The boutique added direct selling, private fittings, custom requests and VIC services to a business that still maintained significant wholesale distribution.

SHEIN X MONSE combined a mass-market capsule with a mentorship programme led by Kim and Garcia for five independent designers. The project expanded Monse’s collaboration model into teaching and high-volume retail while remaining separate from the house’s core collection structure.

The Equinox collaboration translated Monse’s growing athletic vocabulary into performance-oriented bra tops, cropped garments and cutout leggings. It extended an existing collection direction into a dedicated capsule without creating a permanent activewear line.

The Fall 2021 Monse event was staged alongside the HBO Max Gossip Girl premiere and linked the runway to screen costume culture, live streaming and a short pre-order window. It marked the brand’s return to a physical fashion event after the pandemic presentation reset.

Pandemic disruption changed Monse’s calendar, sales timing and material use across several seasons. Existing Fall 2020 stock was sold through a live rooftop event, Resort 2021 moved online, later public images were delayed closer to retail, and deadstock or existing fabrics became more important as direct e-commerce grew.

Monse worked with Paris footwear brand Both on Gao boots for Fall 2020. The project brought the label’s hybrid construction language into footwear several years before its later Sperry collaboration.

Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia designed costumes with choreographer Lauren Lovette for the New York City Ballet work Not Our Fate. The project carried Monse’s lacing, monochrome palette and garment construction into clothing designed for movement on stage.

Monse entered a decade-long dual-house period when Kim and Garcia returned to Oscar de la Renta in September 2016. Oscar supplied operational support and held a reported financial interest in Monse, while Monse retained separate collections, clients, leadership and an independent design identity.

Fernando Garcia has remained a principal creative author of Monse since 2015. His structural and narrative approach has helped extend the label from reconstructed shirting into technical sportswear, tailoring, eveningwear and collaboration-led product categories.

Laura Kim has remained a principal creative author of Monse since its foundation. Her work links the debut reconstruction of shirting and tailoring to the current mix of lace, corsetry, eveningwear, sportswear and direct client-focused design.

Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia established Monse in New York in 2015 after leaving Oscar de la Renta. The company developed through friends-and-family financing, a small founder-led studio and early wholesale relationships before its public runway debut in September.