Introduction
Dao-Yi Chow is a New York designer and co-founder of Public School New York. Raised in Queens, he studied communications at New York University and entered fashion through music, hip-hop image-making and menswear. At Sean John he developed experience across men’s design, creative direction and licensed product, working in the same design department where he met Maxwell Osborne.
Chow and Osborne founded Public School in 2008, building a locally produced menswear label around layered tailoring and the idea of a New York uniform. Their partnership received the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund, CFDA menswear honours and the International Woolmark Prize, and expanded into womenswear and recurring projects with Jordan Brand. Chow’s contribution combines garment design with the conceptual and verbal frameworks through which the duo positions each collection.
From 2015 to 2016, Chow and Osborne served as co-creative directors of DKNY across menswear and womenswear while continuing Public School. After stepping back from the label’s ready-to-wear cycle, they returned in 2026 with a smaller direct-to-consumer structure and the Everything Is Now collection, reasserting joint ownership of the brand’s design and direction.
Design ethos
Chow’s work begins with New York as a social and visual system: public-school dress codes, downtown sportswear, hip-hop, formal workwear and the friction between aspiration and daily use. He favours garments that can carry several readings at once, such as a tailored jacket with athletic construction, a parka treated as city armour or a familiar uniform shifted through scale, closure and layering.
Within Public School’s joint process, Chow often articulates the collection’s narrative and structural argument while designing alongside Maxwell Osborne. The method depends on anonymity rather than designer spectacle, a controlled palette, local production and clothing that remains legible off the runway. At DKNY, the same urban logic was applied to a larger women’s and men’s business without replacing the independent vocabulary of Public School.
Disclaimer
Career history
2026
Public School resumed full collection activity in February 2026 with a direct-to-consumer structure, relaunched e-commerce and a temporary retail programme at High Line Nine. The founders rebuilt the studio around tighter control of product, production, delivery and the brand’s public narrative.
2017
Public School announced its withdrawal from the New York Fashion Week schedule in December 2017 while planning organisational and direct-to-consumer changes. Full ready-to-wear collections then stopped for seven years, a period the founders describe as a pause rather than a clearly documented legal closure.
2016
In 2016, Public School combined menswear and womenswear into two annual off-calendar runway blocks named Collection 1 and Collection 2. The change aligned design and delivery more closely with menswear and pre-collection schedules while reducing the number of separate seasonal shows.
2016
Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne left DKNY in December 2016 as Donna Karan International moved into new ownership and a different operating structure. Their departure ended a brief tenure that had required simultaneous creative leadership of DKNY and Public School.
2015
Public School began a recurring collaboration with Jordan Brand in 2015, initially translating its monochrome New York wardrobe into the Air Jordan 12. Later AJ12 city editions and the Air Jordan 15 made footwear a durable extension of the label’s design identity.
2015
Public School won the inaugural International Woolmark Prize for Menswear in January 2015. The international award recognised the founders’ material and construction work in wool and strengthened the label’s global menswear profile.
2015
DKNY appointed Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne as co-creative directors on 29 April 2015, with responsibility for both menswear and womenswear. They split their time between DKNY and Public School until the Donna Karan International sale and strategic transition ended the appointment in December 2016.
2014
Public School received the CFDA Menswear Designer of the Year award in June 2014. The prize confirmed the duo’s rapid move from incubated New York label to a leading voice in American menswear.
2014
Public School introduced womenswear during its first runway show on 9 February 2014. The new category retained the menswear collection’s layered tailoring, outerwear and urban utility, establishing a co-ed main line rather than a separate diffusion identity.
2013
Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne won the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund in November 2013. The award supplied capital and mentorship, accelerating Public School’s business development and the womenswear launch that followed in 2014.
2013
Public School won the CFDA Swarovski Award for Menswear in June 2013. The recognition placed the still-small New York label within the main institutional conversation around American menswear.
2010
Public School was selected as the sole menswear participant in the inaugural CFDA Fashion Incubator in 2010. The development period strengthened the business and supported the founders’ decision to consolidate production in New York City.
2008
Dao-Yi Chow has co-directed Public School New York with Maxwell Osborne since its 2008 foundation. He combines garment design with the conceptual framing of the label’s New York uniform, and resumed full collection activity with the founder-led 2026 return.
2008
Dao-Yi Chow and Maxwell Osborne founded Public School New York in 2008 as a menswear label designed and produced in New York. The launch established a joint authorship built around tailored sportswear, layered utility and the idea of a New York uniform.
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