The big magazines will spend the next month photographing the same twelve front rows. We're going to spend it somewhere else.

Fashion Verified Magazine started with a simple idea: that the word "verified" should mean something. Not verified by an algorithm or a blue checkmark, but by people who actually watched the clothes come down a runway and decided they were worth your time. Over the years we've pointed that lens at designers most outlets never make room for. Evan Hirsch, who turns secondhand castoffs into couture good enough for the CFDA calendar. DAWANG, who carried Qingdao's heritage onto a New York runway. Walter Mendez, who found softness and power in the same Paris collection. Designers with a point of view and, usually, no publicity machine behind them.

We went quiet for a while. I won't pretend otherwise. But the industry we care about didn't, and if anything the most interesting work is happening further from the center than it used to. So we're back, and this time we have a plan.

Through New York Fashion Week and the weeks around it, we'll cover the emerging and international designers we think you should know before everyone else does: the ones bringing real craft and a real idea to the season. We're bringing back FVM Verified, our designer spotlight, as a running feature. And we'll do it close to real time on the site and on Instagram, so you can follow the season as it happens instead of reading about it a week later.

New York Fashion Week opens September 10. We already have a stack of names we're chasing. You'll recognize a few. Most you won't, yet.

That's rather the point.

It's not fashion until it's verified. Let's get to work.

Ashley Wright, Editor-in-Chief