This may not come as a surprise to most of you, but people who work in fashion like going to dinner parties. There’s literally no dinner a fashion person won’t turn up to if the promise of a free meal and goody bag presents itself. If there was a dinner party for the opening of a can, the average fashion person would happily attend and post ‘Thank you The Can’ on their story afterwards. And it’s not just during fashion week that they crop up – industry dinners are happening every second of every minute of every day, the true boardrooms and decision-making centre’s of the fashion world. So when it was revealed that Eckhaus Latta were hosting an “intimate dinner party in celebration of the brand’s SS25 collection”, literally nobody moved. That was, until, the actual dinner took place.
This NYFW, label founders Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta invited a group of close friends down to 102 Franklin in Tribeca for what seemed like a very regular dinner party. Cocktails were flowing, food was being scoffed, a very merry time was being had, and that’s when things took a turn. “Oh, you thought this was just a dinner. Wrong,” began the comedian Kate Berlant, who hopped on a mic to emcee the rest of the evening. From there, the impromptu runway portion of the night began, with Berlant calling out the names of unsuspecting guests to walk the makeshift runway between the tables, each one having no prior knowledge of their inclusion in the fashion show.
Very fortuitously, the group of close friends that Mike and Zoe invited to the dinner happened to include famous actors and important fashion editors, so that worked out quite well. In amongst the bunch was Kamala Harris stepchild and Bushwick’s First Daughter Ella Emhoff, who wore a black halter and wide-leg pantaloons, actor Jemima Kirke, who was in a grey crêpe-y slip dress, and singer Moses Sumney in some Y2K yellow tinted shades.
Joining them on the runway was singer King Princess, British Vogue editor Julia Hobbs, actor Coco Gordon Moore, plus various members of New York’s fashion media cabal. As well as Eckhaus Latta’s SS25 collection – which included the brand’s ultra-cool offering of ribbed knits and cotton dresses, leather mules and cut-out cargos, plus club ready tank tops and off-kilter office wear – the guests also sported second-hand pieces from previous collections, sourced as part of a collaboration with the resale marketplace Depop. A sustainable offering and reinventing the tedious fashion dinner party? Eckhaus Latta is definitely on a winning streak this fashion week.
Scroll through the gallery above for all of the dinner party looks.