GQ’s Best New Menswear Designers in America finalists announced

by Elise Diamantini

GQ recently announced the nominees for their annual Best New Menswear Designer in America contest. This year’s finalists include: Warriors of Radness designer Rick Klotz; Patrik Ervell; Riviera Club designers Joe Sadler, Derek Buse and Greg Ullery; Gant by Michael Bastian; Miller’s Oath designer Kirk Miller; and T by Alexander Wang.

This is the fourth time GQ has teamed up with Bloomingdale’s and the CFDA. New this year is their partnership with Docker’s (Levi’s has sponsored past competitions). Still within the Levi’s family, Docker’s is allowing all six designers to contribute looks to the limited-edition Dockers collection (featured in the September 2011 issue of GQ and at an event held in New York City on Thursday February 10th).

Judging the competition are GQ editor-in-chief Jim Nelson, GQ creative director Jim Moore, CFDA executive director Steven Kolb, Docker’s senior vice president of global design Doug Conklyn, Bloomingdale’s vice president of fashion direction Kevin Harter and designer Tommy Hilfiger.

The winner is awarded with a $50,000 cash prize, along with the opportunity to sell their Docker’s capsule collection for a month at select Bloomingdale’s stores, and the title Best New Menswear Designer in America. Past winners include Billy Reid, Robert Geller and Engineered Garments.