Rachel Antonoff’s clothes are love letters to a wide array of treats, from rainbow cookies to smoked salmon bedecked bagels, from caviar to bodega coffee to babka.
Recently a print inspired by radicchio – a chicory that comes in a variety of blushy pinks, vibrant reds and near-purples – made the cut for the Spring 2025 release. “It’s just so beautiful,” reflected Antonoff. When asked for the inspiration behind the design, she replied, “It’s very basic answer, but we just love to eat. (Food is) just a huge part of my daily joy and even entertainment and excitement. So, it just makes its way into the work always.”
Antonoff runs an extended sizing (extra small through 3X) fashion company based out of New York. “We’re a small, tight team and everyone kind of does a million jobs. So I feel like design is truly influenced by more than the design team.” Antonoff says that inspiration for the radicchio print came the way it often does – from overhearing in-depth conversations in the office about what everyone is ordering for lunch.
“Sometimes the idea for a print is immediate, like with the rosa de veneto (variety of radicchio) print, I think one of us was having a salad and I noticed how beautiful it was. In that situation the print does kind of dictate itself. ”
The Rachel Antonoff team works with a number of artists. For the radicchio print, they tapped painter Hazel Lee Santino. “As we ventured into the world of salads, we were amazed at how many look like beautiful bouquets of flowers,” shares Antonoff. After the success of a sweater featuring rainbow chard, the team set their sights on the most eye-catching members of the radicchio family, like the aforementioned rosa de veneto as well as castelfranco.
The elements of surprise and discovery are important parts of the radicchio design.
“Most of our prints are hidden in plain sight, kind of a game you can play with yourself. Like there’s going to be little Easter eggs, and we love the idea of a print that reveals itself the more you look at it.” The radicchio print, for example, may look like a pretty floral. Upon further examination, however, it reveals itself as something else. Next, the wearer (or viewer) might see the oranges in the print. Maybe this is all just an inside joke for the wearer, but maybe it inspires curiosity or a conversation started by others.
On whether she personally is wild for radicchio, Antonoff says she’s been working on eating the radicchio that was used in their first photo shoot for the print.
Antonoff’s first-ever food design featured farfalle, a type of pasta shaped like bows. “That took off and became really associated with what the brand was about,” she says. “A lot of the baked good prints and knits are based on things that I’m baking at that time. Our key lime sweater and print came out when I was going really hard on key lime pie.”
The bad news for those of us who love wearing food prints is that not every one of Antonoff’s gastronomic fashion dreams has worked out. “There’s breakfasts, lunches and dinners worth of ideas that haven’t panned out. We have so many prints that don’t end up seeing the light of day. We’re such a small company, and what stores order really dictates what ends up going into production.” One ill-fated print featured a submarine sandwich knit, complete with the frilly, metallic toothpicks. The good new is that the team tries hard not to give up on prints they love. “We try to make it work in another way for a future season. There are also things that we’ve tried two or three times before they really hit, and then they totally work.”
“Comfort is a huge part of our ethos here.”
For Antonoff and her team, the love for food goes beyond aesthetic inspiration. They design with eating in mind. “When we design we often ask ourselves if we could wear this to dinner and not feel constricted. We want to celebrate literal fullness, like a feeling of fullness.” This is great news for those of who don’t want the feast to end with our eyes.