Designer Rachel Scott (b. 1984, Jamaica) comes to fashion through language. Drawing on her background in French existentialism and post-structuralism, Scott’s interest in fashion began with an awareness of language’s connection to culture and creativity. In an effort to stay close to ‘the things themselves,’ Scott looked to fashion design as a moment of intellectual, aesthetic, and corporeal unity to be explored.

 

Having worked at all levels of the design process – from designer to executive to consultant – throughout her 16-year career in Milan and NYC, Scott brings vast technical and creative knowledge to Diotima. Foundational experiences at Costume National in Italy laid the groundwork for an approach to fashion rooted in a reverence for craft, construction, and fine materials – and her design sensibility as a Jamaican grounds her work in the concrete intersection of the historical, political, and the aesthetic.

 

 

 

 

Through Diotima I seek to present a seductive and nuanced vision of Caribbean style, looking to the future while remaining grounded in history and my lived experience as a Jamaican.

 

Founded in 2021, Diotima offers a year-round and seasonally interchangeable wardrobe. Diotima is designed and crafted between Jamaica and New York. Rooted in a reverence for savoir-faire, focus is placed on supporting and amplifying artisanal communities in Jamaica. All our crochet - the foundation of the collection - is made in Jamaica.

 

Tailoring is crafted with Heritage Tweeds from the UK, harkening back to the informal dialogue that was born out of the Jamaican diaspora during the Windrush era, as well as Tropical Wools and Basketweaves from storied Italian mills. In tension with the Tailoring and crochet is hand embellishment and threadwork, always with an emphasis on craft. I advocate for a more expansive definition of luxury, one that is not exclusively centred in Europe.

 

Diotima, unclear whether she was a real or invented figure, teaches Eros to Socrates in Plato’s Symposium. Her love ascends from love of a beautiful being to the highest form which is love of beauty itself. It is through Eros that I seek to build anew.