LEZO: Protection Through Metal

What does the title 'Metal Manifest' mean?

We thought about how the fashion industry would look in the future and how we could transform it into a more conscious practice, telling the story of women’s current needs. Metal became an allegory — a protective layer, armour, outerwear, and the ability to be stoic during challenging times.

How have you approached the idea of 'womanhood' through this collection?

By the time we started working on this collection, it was already an open secret: the world is unpredictable, and frankly, dangerous, especially if you're a woman. Social roles are imposed on you, statuses crumble, entire states destabilise — nothing holds. This collection is about a woman rebuilding herself from the wreckage as everything falls apart around her.

The tech revolution, digitalisation, climate collapse, wars raging across the globe, economic freefall — these aren't background noise. They're obstacles the modern woman has to navigate, right alongside motherhood and the fight to be taken seriously at work, in society, everywhere. In Metal Manifest, we developed the idea of a uniform for all mobile people, reflecting their need for comfort and physical and mental protection while combining their desire to regain their voice and make an impact. It’s an exaggerated idea of a capsule wardrobe where party dresses are fused with underwear essentials and practical yet still festive outerwear.

How have you explored the relationship between vulnerability and strength through LEZO's designs?

We thought about the concept of a second skin as a cocooning and protective layer for LEZO’s main female character. We always create a defensive material, coated with metal, earthy textures, or lacquer. We saw these cold, crisp finishes in contrast to the inner layers like Life and Death on Earth — also, color schemes attempt to slightly twist camo, as we used military-inspired colors. But we don’t want to speculate on the topic of war or use too many martial-inspired narratives. However, the experience of being a modern Ukrainian woman and keeping both vulnerability and strength pushes me to find such narratives in my design. We translate these concepts through materials, silhouettes, and extreme sexuality.

With LEZO being such a young label, what has emerged as the essential foundations of its design language?

Entering such a saturated industry was challenging for us, yet we have succeeded thanks to the essential elements of our visual DNA: an ode to metal, which serves as armour for the modern woman, and free experimentation with fabrics and textures (metal coating, liquid effects, hyper-glossy materials, and technical textiles in combination with fabric manipulation and draping techniques). We create through deep research and we are armed with an eager desire to further develop our voice in Ukrainian design and contribute to making Ukrainian fashion known internationally. LEZO explores the sexuality, vulnerability and power of a woman, and we offer ammunition.

How does the larger world and Ukraine, as your country of origin, influence your practice?

Our design practice is based on our personal experience of displacement and living through war. A defining feature of our collections is its peculiar use of distressed fabrics that mimic scars and traces. Many garments symbolise the indelible marks left by life's challenges and evoke a profound sense of resilience. We talk about the experience of running a fashion brand during the war, about modern women living and escaping, the climate crisis and diverse paths of migrants that take and capture the traces they leave while transitioning from one place to another.

While thinking about the global shift in fashion, we are still connected closely to our local design scene, Ukrainian artisanal techniques and personal stories from our friends, colleagues, founders and all the people being so brave to shape our design practice further during challenging times. Now, we think much more about our authenticity and Ukrainian design code. We had an idea about defining Ukrainian fashion identity and heritage sustainably. This is crucial as cultural language is how we communicate our values. We know minimalistic Nordic design, and we can distinguish avant-garde British fashion and refined French art from Italian legacy. As our country faces challenges both culturally and physically, design is the primary tool for redevelopment. Design influences many industries, from fashion, art, interiors, and architecture to urban development, production, planning, and inclusivity. The scale of what we need to redesign is enormous. In this case, the best approach is to fuse design with sustainability to create a powerful tool. For us, building a fashion brand is one of these tools.

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 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.

Words by Bernice Nguyen
Photography by Margherita Andreani, Contessa Mills, Gerardo Somoza, & Rielly Dunn

Fashion

AYAMA Studio: Made To Be Wet

September 15, 2026

I had the privilege of attending the launch party for AYAMA Studio’s SS27 collection, “Collection 003.” Founder Maya Goldberg harnessed a vibrant color scheme across the swimwear and ready-to-wear designs, staying true to the label’s vivacious aesthetic. From the beginning of her career, Maya questioned standard fashion industry protocols, resisting the conventional runway, presentation, and mundane formats repeated each season. “Collection 003” was a way for Maya to step into her own identity as a designer—to no longer “try to fit into a mold that goes against everything I believe in.” What distinguishes “Collection 003” is how it pushes its own boundaries, transcending into another world that we are invited to enter. But first, it begins with a party.

The launch party, otherwise known as “AYAMA Car Wash,” took place at Time Again, a bar that has now become a staple of the downtown Manhattan scene. The event was anything but ordinary. It was not only a peek into AYAMA’s new designs but also an immersive experience that straddled the line between a playful performance and a NYFW launch.

As I made my way to the parking lot next to Time Again, I immediately noticed the whimsical nature of “Collection 003.” A green vintage Chrysler Cordoba was stationed in the middle of the lot as models dressed in AYAMA performed a car wash. Locals filed around the bordering fence, watching them effortlessly embody the event’s ambience. I stood with friends, also watching the scene unfold. Unbeknownst to us, we were part of the show—the audience. For Maya, putting on a performance was a way to defy the constraints of the fashion industry and give the clothes a world to live in.

Text by Leah Wasilewski
Photography by Matt Weinberger

“There was the cotton candy girl; there were the girls who were tanning, and the girls who were washing the car. I wanted to create a role for every person depending on what they were wearing. I wanted to create a scene with an audience.”

Maya was deliberate about the casting process, careful not to succumb to the modern ideal of working exclusively with influencers or signed models. Instead, she sought ways to capture the essence of downtown New York. Maya describes the cast to be the coolest girls—those who unapologetically embody their individuality.

As a former organizer and host of underground cabaret parties, Maya wanted to infuse her brand with the same sense of play. The parties started in a Tribeca loft, eventually moving to various establishments around New York City, such as NSFW, a members-only, erotic club. “It became a community where people came together to just be themselves. Choosing a different theme for each party was creative for me. There was a school-girl theme, Playboy Bunny, Studio 54, Alice in Wonderland, Black Swan.”

Although the pieces in “Collection 003” were designed to get wet, it’s a mistake to assume the collection is limited to swimwear. AYAMA refuses to fit into a category. In fact, much of “Collection 003” wasinspired by outfits from Maya’s underground parties—dance attire and lingerie similar to swimwear. For Maya, AYAMA Car Wash was not just a launch party. It was an act of rebellion, a way to confront misogynistic ideals that run rampant in the fashion industry and beyond.

“At first, I was denying myself the idea of braiding my two worlds—the underground parties and AYAMA as a brand and business. They felt like two separate parts of myself that didn't have anywhere to meet. It was always hard for me to grapple with because there was a whole side of me that felt like an imposter. The car wash was a way to merge the concept of my underground parties with my brand. I wanted the event to be sexy and interactive. AYAMA has always been something society could digest, so doing the car wash was an activation for the brand and for myself. I was self-actualizing something for myself.

The car wash was catering to the male gaze, which in a way was rebelling against it. A lot of men look down upon women who are outwardly sexy, or those who sexualize themselves, even if that's what they are attracted to. The underground parties also catered to the male gaze, but rebelled against the notion that only men have the power to sexualize a woman.”

AYAMA proves that business and art can take shape in many forms. When asked to encapsulate her work in one word, Maya did not hesitate to respond. With a laugh, she said, “Play.”