On a busy November afternoon at Balthazar, New York's enduring power-lunch spot, a chocolate-brown leather bag rests on the seat of one of its famous cherry-red booths. Resembling a suitcase, it's named the Ana, its oversized horseshoe-shaped handle stamped with its maker's gold moniker - Luar. The Ana is as regular a sight in downtown Manhattan as its owner - incidentally, also its designer - who sits beside it.
That is Raul Lopez, the label's name is his own, inverted, since it's a “true reflection of himself”. He is glamorous in layers of cream knit and own-brand mask sunglasses, and in a buoyant mood. Not only is it his 33rd birthday, but the night before he won the CFDA's 2022 award for American Accessory Designer of the Year, in what seemed like a full-circle moment for a New York native who has largely operated on the fringes of the US fashion industry for more than 17 years. “I felt like it was a mistake or something,” he says in between sips of a hairof-the-dog cocktail. “I thought it would be Brandon [Blackwood] or Telfar [Clemens] - they have more followers,
