Meruert Tolegen, spring 2026 ready-to-wear Photo: Umberto Fratini / Gorunway.com

Meruert Tolegen seems to be living a fashion dream. Since launching her line in 2021, the designer has been a finalist for both the LVMH and CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund prizes, and in the coming week will open her own boutique at 39 Wooster Street. “I feel it’s kind of surreal that they even considered me for anything,” the soft-spoken designer said in a pre-show interview. “I learned a lot from my peers, the designers I’ve had around me. It’s been a really nice and humbling experience.”

Tolegen’s trajectory does not follow the usual path of design school, internships, apprenticeship, entrepreneurship. Rather she comes to the metier through an obsessive curiosity about how clothes are made. As a child in Kazakh

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