On sunny Wednesday afternoon, J. Mendel returned to the runway at the top of the One World Observatory with its newly appointed resident designer Jonathan Cohen for its spring 2027 collection.

“They had contacted me a few days before I was taking off the month of August for the first time. I got a phone call about the opportunity, had the interview after I landed and ended up getting back on the plane to New York with Layla, my dog and started working,” Cohen said backstage of crafting the collection in about two short months.

J. Mendel’s roots go back to 1870s imperial Russia, before the house relocated to New York in the ’80s under Gilles Mendel, fifth-generation member of the founding family. In 2015, New York-based Stallion Inc. bought a stake in the business from Gores Group, but the company ultimately filed for bankruptcy in 2018. Dennis Basso then took the business under his company’s umbrella.

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