At The Mezzanine in downtown Manhattan, six distinct design perspectives shared a runway built around recovery, representation and the belief that fashion can make space for more honest conversations.
Backstage at New York Fashion Week, transformation is usually measured in minutes: a garment adjusted, a face completed, a model sent toward the runway. At the Break Free Designer Showcase for Spring/Summer 2027, transformation carried a deeper meaning.
Held at The Mezzanine in downtown Manhattan and produced by REHAB Studios, the benefit brought together fashion, advocacy and lived experience in support of the Break Free Foundation. The New York-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit works with people and families affected by eating disorders, substance-use disorders and mental-health challenges, using education, support and harm-reduction resources to confront stigma and widen the public understanding of recovery.
The foundation’s guiding belief, we are all recovering from something, gave the evening its emotional center. Rather than asking recovery to remain invisible, Break Free placed it under the runway lights.
A Runway With a Wider Purpose
Founded by CEO Alexandra Nyman, with Vice President and Creative Director Claire Comai, Break Free is best known for its signature Recovery on the Runway showcase. The platform invites designers, advocates and people with lived experience to participate in New York Fashion Week, challenging narrow ideas about what recovery should look like and who gets to represent it.
That mission felt especially relevant backstage, where the familiar choreography of fittings, styling and last-minute adjustments unfolded alongside a program rooted in openness. Stylists Leah David and Keerit Kaur helped coordinate the many visual identities moving through the shared space, while designers prepared collections that ranged from sculptural lace and reinterpreted shapewear to Indigenous craft and contemporary Indian occasionwear.
Sponsors for the season included Sonela Beauty, Quit With Jones and Forward__Space.
REHAB Studios Expands Its Creative Role
REHAB Studios, founded by Comai, served as the creative force behind the production. Comai first introduced REHAB as a clothing label informed by her own recovery story. For SS27, the project widened its scope into a creative studio working across fashion production, public relations and brand development.
The evolution feels connected to Comai’s earlier experience in fashion public relations and to the network she has built across the industry. At Break Free, those relationships became infrastructure: a way to bring emerging and independent designers into one room without separating creative ambition from the human realities behind it.
Six Design Languages, One Shared Stage
The showcase assembled labels with markedly different points of view.
New York-based NIKITA, founded by Canadian designer Nikita Hoehn, revisited the glamour and optimism of the turn of the millennium through a more mature, materially focused perspective. The label’s debut collection, Eat Me. Love Me. Fear Me., established a vocabulary of nostalgia sharpened by confidence and control.
Founded in 2020, REN HAIXI approached lace as both material and structure. The SS27 collection explored its transformative possibilities through sculptural, body-conscious silhouettes and seamless garment construction, extending the brand’s interest in sustainability, innovation and inclusive design.
Brooklyn designer Eesha Patel presented Shrujal, her menswear and womenswear label named for the aunt who first inspired her path into fashion. Patel’s work brings sensuality, craftsmanship and layered symbolism into conversation, giving personal history a place within a sophisticated contemporary wardrobe.
For Swirling Wind Designs, Anishnaabe (Ojibway) designer and traditional craft artist Tracy Toulouse joined Woodland storytelling with modern silhouettes. Toulouse, who is from Sagamok Anishnawbek on the north shore of Lake Huron, works across applique, beadwork, quillwork, antler bone, fur and ribbon work. On the runway, those techniques asserted craft not as ornament alone, but as a carrier of culture, memory and identity.
Designer Archana Soni brought the perspective of Mohikas, her U.S.-based luxury Indian fashion label specializing in bespoke bridalwear, Indo-Western dressing and menswear. The brand pairs contemporary silhouettes with artisan traditions associated with Jaipur, including hand embroidery and zardozi, situating heritage workmanship within an international fashion context.
Los Angeles label NO SESSO, led by Pia Davis and Autumn Randolph, examined lingerie and undergarment construction through Spring 2027 ready-to-wear. Drawing from the label’s archive and the foundational shapes of vintage shapewear, the collection treated what is normally concealed as a visible part of the design language.
Backstage, Recovery Became Visible
The backstage images tell a story beyond any single look. Leah David assists a REN HAIXI model with dressing. Claire Comai moves through the venue in REHAB. Alexandra Nyman stands within the event she created. Models and guests, including Anya Labonville, Anna Alimani, Brian Metcalf, Mulan, Skylar Evans, Chaten “Chay” Nehra, Rurusama and Paizley Laura, connect the collections to the wider community gathered around them.
Together, the photographs capture the labor that makes a runway possible: hands adjusting a garment, designers watching their ideas become movement, and people preparing to be seen. In the context of Break Free, visibility itself became part of the message.
Fashion cannot replace treatment, community care or access to reliable resources. What it can do is create a public language, one capable of replacing secrecy with recognition and isolation with connection. At Break Free SS27, the runway did more than present clothes. It offered a different image of recovery: individual, ongoing and worthy of being seen.
Photo Credits
- Backstage at Break Free SS27, The Mezzanine, New York. NIKITA by Nikita Hoehn. Photograph by Elea Chateau. Identification to be confirmed.
- Break Free Creative Director and REHAB Studios founder Claire Comai wearing REHAB. Photograph by SD Herzog.
- Rurusama dressed in Shrujal by Eesha Patel. Photograph by Elea Chateau. Identification to be confirmed.
- Chaten “Chay” Nehra modeling Mohikas by Archana Soni. Photograph by Elea Chateau.
- Claire Comai photographed at The Mezzanine. Photograph by Bee Married.
- NO SESSO by Pia Davis and Autumn Randolph. Photograph by Elea Chateau.
- Gift-bag items from Quit With Jones, Forward__Space and Sonela Beauty. Credit to be confirmed.
Editor’s note: Event details, collection descriptions, participant identifications and image credits were supplied to Iconic Original Media by event representatives and edited for clarity, accuracy and style. The uncredited gift-bag image and the caption identifications marked above should be confirmed before publication.
