ESSX x 424 SS26 Dinner & After Party

June 26, 2025

The concept store ESSX and LA based brand 424 celebrated the latest SS26 collection by Guillermo Andrade debuting earlier that day, on the rooftop of Le Montana Paris, located in the historic Saint-Germain-des-Prés. With the occasion also marking ESSX's 2 year anniversary since opening their doors to the Lower East Side in 2023 and a full circle moment for Guillermo from being a consultant in the early days of EESX.

Beginning with a private dinner on the rooftop, followed by an after party in the club's red-lit listening room. The evening was graced by the likes of stylist Raf Talaat, actor Will Poulter- who had walked the 424 runway, musician Tommy Richman, DJ Kitty Cash, rapper A$AP Nast, Trey Murphy (NBA), Ja’Marr Chase (NFL) and more.

The collection housed pops of pink, relaxed and more fitted silhouettes and continued to merge high fashion with street culture, a signature for 424.

Photography Kevin Gonzalez & Syiel Custodio

Fashion

LA Opening Party MILLI POINT TWO

This attention to detail continues inside the flagship. Selected pieces are presented in display cases accompanied by engraved plaques detailing their name, edition and origin, giving the store an almost archival or museum-like atmosphere rather than the feeling of a traditional retail space. The intention is to create an environment for appreciation and desire, rather than straightforward consumption.

Among the most distinctive objects on display is the brand's leather toilet seat. The unusual piece originated from a simple misunderstanding: when someone mentioned toiletry bags, the founders mistakenly understood it as toilet seats. Instead of correcting the mistake, they decided to make one, using the same leather and craftsmanship found throughout their collections. The accidental idea eventually became one of the store's signature objects and is now accompanied by a dedicated wall explaining its story.

The flagship extends beyond fashion retail. The space includes a professional recording studio for musicians and collaborators, a custom HiFi sound system throughout the building, and a private padel court. Events and activities will remain deliberately limited, with occasional invitation-only programming including listening sessions, residencies and gatherings with the Clique.

As the founders describe it, the goal was never to create a conventional store that simply sells clothes. Instead, they wanted to build a space where the wider world of Milli Point Two could exist — a place for music, sport, objects and community. The same obsessive level of attention that goes into each garment was applied to the design of the flagship itself.

Milli Point Two is an independent fashion label. Its limited, numbered collections are handcrafted in Samobor, Croatia, using Italian materials.

Fashion

The World of Wonderment at Anna Sui

September 15, 2026

Creative exchange is arguably one of the most important processes in design. While studying and creating fashion is a constant cycle of learning more about the craft, studying art tends to refresh our eyes and taste, introducing us to new visual languages, styles, and wonders. That constant cycle of inspiration is single-handedly making the fashion scene as bold and important as ever.

For Spring/Summer 2027, Anna Sui explores Wonderment, the moment of enlightenment that comes with discovering something new. As Sui describes it, the journey of wonderment is “something that sends you down a rabbit hole. It is the impulse to keep your eyes and mind open to possibility: to reach beyond the familiar, to remain receptive to surprise, and to allow yourself to be astonished and inspired by newfound awareness, sometimes beyond your wildest dreams.”

Words by Bernice Nguyen
Photography by Richie Lee Davis & Raoul Gatchalian

After discovering Howard Gardiner Cushing’s paintings while flipping through a 1970s issue of Vogue and observing Justine Cushing’s walls adorned with the most fantastical paintings, what began as a search for a photograph suddenly became something else entirely for Sui: a new visual world.

The collection explores that same feeling of enchantment and discovery through romantic florals, opulent embellishment, nostalgic lingerie, lace, crochet, luminous satin, and fantastical prints. Some pieces, like the Lilac & Black Fairytale scarf print and Beardsley & Nouveau Florals, appear on a kimono-sleeve jacket and matching robe, in what feels like a louder, bolder, yet still traditional Anna Sui approach, while other pieces, like the Heirloom Embroidered halter top paired with Cabochon Bejeweled jeans, lean into the brand’s more familiar themes of playfulness.

Floral prints serve as one of the collection’s many stars, with designs including Garden Border, Anemone Crinkle Chiffon, and Cornflower Satin Burnout appearing throughout, creating an ever-changing garden of color, pattern, and texture. While the collection is outwardly bold on its own, Sui collaborated with artists and designers to help bring her vision to life. Erickson Beamon Jewelry draws from the Arts and Crafts movement, while John Fluevog Shoes transforms vintage fabrics into fairytale boudoir slippers. Mondottica Eyewear adds fairy-like elements through crystals, iridescence, and Art Nouveau lines, while Olah Hair accessories are customized in Sui’s prints with tulip, calla lily, and lily of the valley scrunchies.

While the ornamental designs are expected from Sui’s signature style, the collection’s careful use of layering, luminosity, and the transformation of inspiration into finished pieces creates a dreamlike visual language, marking a new era for Anna Sui rooted in accumulation and curiosity: the process of one discovery naturally leading to another, where chance becomes discovery, a painting on a wall can spark a creative exchange like no other, and ultimately, wonderment.

Fashion

The Sun in Style at Contessa Mills

September 15, 2026

Contessa Mills presented her Spring/Summer 2027 collection, The Sun, on Saturday, September 12, at the Fridman Gallery during New York Fashion Week. For its second year on the official CFDA calendar, the show featured 43 distinct looks inspired by The Sun tarot card.

Each look draws from the designer’s personal interpretation of the tarot card, but for this collection, Mills looked to childhood memories of playing dress-up in tutus and her father’s work clothes, from overalls to ties, using those fond memories to create intrinsic silhouettes, forms, and shapes throughout the collection of dresses, blouses, skirts, and even overalls. Each piece, incredibly detailed, functioned as an ode to the ability to create with playfulness alongside fine craftsmanship.

“The collection began with the memory of playing dress-up, the joy of trying on a self before you knew which one you would become,” says Contessa Mills.

For this collection, the Fridman Gallery transformed into a space that visually worked in tandem with the collection, as the show was presented through natural grasses and flowers beneath layered lighting, designed to evoke rays of sunlight. The resulting environment created a strange, romantic garden that felt playful, magical, and slightly unreal, inviting guests to step directly into the world of The Sun Collection.