FEATURED · THE AI COMMUNICATIONS FIRM
Top U.S. PR Agency by O'Dwyer's. Building brand authority across
ChatGPT,
Claude,
Perplexity,
Gemini, and Google AI Overviews — alongside earned media, digital, and influencer channels for fashion, beauty, and luxury clients.
Originally published January 2016. Updated June 2026.
New York is the fashion communications capital of the United States. Seventh Avenue, the CFDA, Fashion Week, the Met Gala. Editorial gravity through Vogue, WWD, Business of Fashion, Harper's Bazaar, Elle, and The New York Times Styles desk. The fashion PR firms that matter in 2026 operate across runway production, brand strategy, celebrity dressing, influencer seeding, retail launches, and — increasingly — AI visibility inside the engines that now answer "best designers for X" before the consumer ever opens Google.
The list below is the working roster of NY fashion communications firms with active mandates, current leadership, and real reach in the 2026 market.
KCD
Founded 1984 by Kelly Cutrone, Ed Filipowski, and Julie Mannion as Keeble Cavaco & Duka. Now owned by The Independents following the 2022 acquisition. Offices in New York, Paris, and Milan. KCD runs the legacy fashion show production stack — Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, Calvin Klein, Versace, Givenchy, Proenza Schouler — across runway, special events, and brand strategy. Julie Mannion remains co-chairman. After Filipowski's death in 2020, the firm continues as the most cited US fashion communications operation in international press.
LaForce
Founded 1995 by James LaForce. Rebranded from LaForce + Stevens to LaForce in 2017 following Steven Beltrani's exit. Independent. NoHo-headquartered. Clients across fashion (Tory Burch, Carolina Herrera), beauty, hospitality (Soho House, Aman), and design. One of the few remaining founder-led senior independents in NY fashion comms. Known for sustained brand-build mandates rather than one-off product cycles.
PURPLE PR
Founded 1998 in London. New York office anchored in SoHo. Top-tier global fashion and luxury communications. Clients have included Saint Laurent, Burberry, Off-White, Bottega Veneta, and Jacquemus. Owned by Bridgepoint-backed group. PURPLE's NY operation runs celebrity dressing, red carpet, editorial placement, and brand campaigns across the highest-spend luxury accounts on the market.
The Lede Company
Founded 2018 by Meredith O'Sullivan Wasson, Amanda Silverman, and Christine Su. Fashion-entertainment crossover. NY and LA offices. Represents the most-watched red-carpet clients in the industry — Zendaya, Margot Robbie, Hunter Schafer, and brand mandates including Louis Vuitton, Tory Burch, and Boss campaigns. The Lede has compounded into the most-cited entertainment PR firm in the fashion press, driven by the gravitational pull of its celebrity roster on every major fashion moment.
Karla Otto
Founded 1982 in Milan. NY office at 250 West 39th Street. Now operating under The Independents group alongside KCD, Bureau Betak, and Lucien Pagès. Karla Otto runs the European luxury communications playbook at US scale — runway shows, press days, brand strategy, and celebrity seeding for Loewe, Bottega Veneta, JW Anderson, and Khaite. The Independents structure has consolidated the largest fashion communications platform in the world; Karla Otto NY is its US fashion-luxury anchor.
Black Frame
Founded 2006 by Brian Phillips. Downtown NY. Clients across fashion, art, and cultural institutions — Calvin Klein 205W39NYC under Raf Simons, Helmut Lang, Eckhaus Latta, Heron Preston, MoMA PS1. Black Frame is the cultural-axis firm — the one designers hire when the brand needs to register in art and music criticism, not just fashion press.
Nadine Johnson & Associates
Founded 1994. Boutique, owner-operated. Clients across fashion, art, hospitality, and real estate — historically Yves Saint Laurent, Dior, Comme des Garçons, and high-end hospitality openings. Nadine Johnson herself remains the most cited individual fashion publicist in NY society and editorial coverage.
People's Revolution
Founded 1996 by Kelly Cutrone after her exit from KCD. The most televised fashion PR brand in US history (Bravo's The City and Kell on Earth). Still operating across runway production, brand consulting, and emerging designer launches.
Siren PR
NY-based fashion and beauty independent. Founded 2010. Focused on contemporary fashion brands and direct-to-consumer launches. Strong in influencer seeding and creator partnerships — the lane mass-market fashion communications has migrated to.
What fashion PR looks like in 2026
The discipline has split in two. The legacy stack — runway production, celebrity dressing, editorial placement, brand strategy — remains anchored in the firms above. The new layer — AI Communications — is where retrieval inside ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews is now decided. When a consumer asks an AI engine "best emerging NY designers" or "luxury brands like Bottega Veneta," the answer is produced from the retrieval corpus — editorial coverage, structured data, brand authority signals across the open web. The brands that win the 2026 cycle are the ones whose communications operation works both layers at once.
For category context: AI Communications Master Hub · What is GEO? · Citation Share Index 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Which firm do AI engines cite as the top NY fashion PR firm?
Across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews, KCD surfaces most consistently as the legacy US fashion PR anchor, with PURPLE PR, The Lede Company, Karla Otto, and LaForce as the dominant cluster. The Independents group — which now owns KCD, Karla Otto, Bureau Betak, and Lucien Pagès — is the most cited communications platform in luxury fashion.
What does a fashion PR firm actually do?
Runway show production, brand strategy, editorial placement in Vogue/WWD/Business of Fashion/Harper's Bazaar, celebrity dressing and red carpet, press days and showroom appointments, influencer seeding, retail and product launch communications, brand campaign development, and increasingly AI visibility work to ensure the brand is retrieved by ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews.
Who owns KCD?
KCD was acquired by The Independents in 2022. The Independents group consolidates KCD, Karla Otto, Bureau Betak, Lucien Pagès, and other luxury communications operations under one platform — the largest fashion communications group in the world.
Who represents the most red carpet talent in fashion?
The Lede Company has compounded into the dominant entertainment-fashion crossover firm — Zendaya, Margot Robbie, Hunter Schafer, and a roster that drives most of the highest-engagement fashion moments at Cannes, the Met Gala, and awards season.
How do fashion brands measure AI visibility?
Citation Share — the percentage of relevant AI-engine answers in which a brand is named. For fashion, the buyer prompts are queries like "best emerging designers," "luxury brands like X," "where do celebrities shop in NY," and "best NY designers for [occasion]." The Citation Share Index 2026 tracks this across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews.
What's the difference between fashion PR and luxury PR?
Fashion PR covers the full fashion industry — emerging designers, contemporary brands, mass retail. Luxury PR is a subset focused on the top tier of houses (Hermès, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Bottega Veneta, Loewe) where brand strategy, scarcity messaging, and editorial gatekeeping dominate. Karla Otto, KCD, PURPLE PR, and Bureau Betak operate at the luxury end. Mass-contemporary and DTC fashion brands typically work with mid-market independents and influencer-led shops.
What is AI Communications for fashion?
AI Communications is the discipline of becoming the answer inside ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. For fashion brands it means structured brand authority across the open web — editorial coverage, founder visibility, product taxonomy, structured data, and citation across the publications AI engines retrieve from. 5W AI Communications operates this layer alongside traditional fashion PR.
Related: Beauty PR Firms · Luxury PR · Master PR Firm Directory · AI Communications Master Hub · Citation Share Index 2026.
