Nili Lotan

Nili Lotan is almost certainly the only Council of Fashion Designers of America member to have served in the Israeli Air Force. She’s also one of the few to have built a sizable fan base without ever staging a fashion show or mounting a major ad campaign. Instead, the Israeli-born, TriBeCa-based designer has done it with clothes The New York Times once described to a T: “They are neutral, well considered, the sort of thing magazines like to euphemize as ‘elevated basics,’ as if there were anything basic about making something women want to wear every day.” From breezy tunics to oversized button-ups, her pieces are the building blocks of a well-edited wardrobe.

Nili Lotan