Introduction
Fernando Garcia graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a Bachelor of Architecture in 2009. A family connection led to a meeting with Oscar de la Renta, who encouraged him to intern at the New York house; Garcia joined the studio that year and developed from internship and design-assistant work into senior responsibility across eveningwear and celebrity dressing. It was there that he met Laura Kim and formed the working partnership that would later become Monse.
Garcia left Oscar de la Renta with Kim in May 2015 and co-founded Monse. The label’s debut Spring 2016 collection used familiar men’s shirts and tailoring as raw material for asymmetric womenswear, and Garcia’s early interest in building a distinct house quickly expanded into sportswear, outerwear, evening dressing and cross-gender styling. During Monse’s first year he also consulted for Carolina Herrera while the independent label continued to grow.
Garcia returned to Oscar de la Renta with Kim on 2 September 2016 as co-creative director, balancing that role with Monse until the pair completed their Oscar tenure in February 2026. He now works full-time on Monse, continuing a collaborative authorship that joins narrative show concepts, American sportswear references, deconstructed tailoring and an increasingly broad evening wardrobe. His architectural training remains visible in the way garments are rotated, stacked and rebuilt as spatial compositions around the body.
Design ethos
Garcia approaches clothing through structure, proportion and visual wit. His architecture background aligns closely with Monse’s habit of treating a known garment as a set of parts that can be reoriented: a trouser pattern becomes a top, tailoring is cut on an unexpected axis, or the waistband of one piece migrates into another. The transformation stays legible because the original archetype remains present beneath the distortion.
He also brings a strong narrative instinct to the collections. Nautical uniforms, cycling jerseys, school dressing, punk, climbing gear, American football and hotel staff uniforms have all supplied recognisable visual systems that Monse can dismantle and recombine. These references expand the wardrobe while keeping the brand grounded in practical American clothing and the tension between polish and disruption.
In the post-Oscar period, Garcia and Kim have been able to concentrate that experimentation inside one house. Resort and pre-fall collections increasingly connect masculine tailoring with lace, corsetry and eveningwear, while footwear and special projects extend the same method beyond ready-to-wear. The design remains collaborative, with construction, humour and cultural reference working as equal parts of the Monse language.
Disclaimer
Career history
2026
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.
2025
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.
2025
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.
2025
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.
2025
Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia announced their departure from Oscar de la Renta on 17 September 2025, with Fall 2026 set as their final main season. Their atelier work ended in February 2026, closing the creative mandate while some shareholder and board-level connection to the company continued.
2025
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.
2024
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.
2022
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.
2021
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.
2020
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.
2020
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.
2017
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.
2016
Fernando Garcia returned to Oscar de la Renta as co-creative director on 2 September 2016 and remained in the role until February 2026. The mandate ran alongside Monse and ended after the house’s Pre-Fall and Fall 2026 work was completed.
2016
Oscar de la Renta appointed Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia co-creative directors on 2 September 2016. They directed the house in parallel with Monse until February 2026, maintaining two separate collection systems and creative identities.
2016
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.
2015
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.
2015
Fernando Garcia joined Carolina Herrera as a consultant in October 2015 and continued in that capacity during 2016. The work ran alongside Monse and ended around the time he and Laura Kim returned to Oscar de la Renta.
2015
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.
2009
Fernando Garcia joined Oscar de la Renta in 2009 through an internship and design-assistant route. His six-year tenure expanded into eveningwear, celebrity dressing and senior design responsibility before he left with Laura Kim in May 2015.
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