The New York Fashion Brands Who've Built a Community of Super-Fans

Sophie WangTue, March 3, 2026 at 10:50 PM UTC

0

The Cults of Anna Sui and Sandy Liang Getty Images

"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links."

Driving up Fifth Avenue to the New York Academy of Medicine on the Sunday of New York Fashion Week, it was easy to feel like you were stepping into another world entirely. On the sidewalks approaching 103rd Street, people wearing February’s classic uniform of chunky coats and even chunkier boots were quickly replaced by those in little pink minidresses, sweet lacy collars, and a medley of bows. The big blur of playful femininity and blushed cheeks could mean only one thing: the Sandy Liang show was about to begin.

The Fashion Week schedule is always packed, but every season, there are a few shows where guests try their very best to linger, to slow down and soak up the atmosphere. They’re the ones with a community so strong it pulls you in, where people let down their guard and allow themselves to be unabashedly joyful. They’re the ones that attendees have marked in their diaries with a heart, counting down the days to the 15-minute presentation. They’re the ones with cult followings, whose flurry of guests and onlookers alike can be spotted on the train ride there. In New York, those are Anna Sui and Sandy Liang.

“It feels like we’re playing dress up,” Ella Emhoff told Harper’s Bazaar on “Sandy Sunday,” as the guests called it. She was wearing a blue checkered set, including a white tee crafted with an adorable built-in patterned bra. “We’re all so excited to get dressed and come here.”

While Liang counts several recognizable stars as fans—Emhoff, alongside the likes of Olivia Rodrigo and Lola Tung—its front row wasn’t stacked with high-profile influencers or celebrities there for the sake of a viral press opportunity. Instead, the historic library was packed full with a mix of writers and editors, artists and designers, and friends of the brand. The guests all stalled to find their seats, reuniting with friends in town for the week and greeting new faces with the same enthusiasm. (When you’re a Sandy girl, every other Sandy girl feels like a long-lost cousin.) It was all giddy smiles and childlike wonder, with fans ready to dive in and obsess over the new collection.

Since its foundation in 2014, the brand has found its footing with the dreamers, nostalgics, and daring girly girls of New York City who need a place to indulge in their fantasies. Whether turning to dollhouses for coquette-core inspiration or referencing specific childhood memories of her own (such as The Fresh Prince of Bel Air), Liang has tugged at her followers' heartstrings by referencing their inner worlds—where childlike imaginations live on and the often-trivialized experiences of girlhood are not only valued, but contemplated.

That was particularly clear this season, which welcomed guests for a collection inspired by the muse of all muses: Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola’s version). If you haven’t seen the film, it made the fantastical world of Versailles into a bubblegum Y2K playground while at the same time humanizing the queen as a young girl navigating an unfamiliar land and title. This dichotomy—of over-the-top pastry-colored daydreams and real politically charged discussions—has long been a Liang touchstone, and hit particularly close to home for her fans who balance the two sides of themselves (the romantic and the realist) in everyday life.

“Everyone gets so excited, posting about their Sandy fittings and being like, ‘This is my favorite day of fashion week,’” Emhoff continued. “My history with Sandy goes back so far, but I would say, the first time I encountered her was probably on Instagram seven years ago, before I was doing anything in the fashion industry. It felt just so nostalgic, mixed with the current woman you want to be; you’re almost growing up with the brand. It creates a community that’s super specific to people who resonate with this kind of nostalgia and playful. I think the beauty of it is that it’s not for everyone, but the people it is, it hits so close to home.”

For Kayla Curtis-Evans, creative editor at Hypebeast, it certainly did. “When I was younger, I daydreamed a lot; I still do,” she shared. “Sometimes I feel like my head is in the clouds more often than not. When we get older, we’re taught to discard that dream-like state and opt into reality—but Sandy Liang’s shows create a universe where it’s okay to dream, to indulge in your inner child, no matter how old we get.”

But while daydreaming is a solo activity, Liang's shows are communal. “There’s something so comforting about sitting in a room with likeminded people, watching garments created by a designer with a like-minded approach to life,” Curtis-Evans goes on. “Sandy’s collections tell us that you can’t outgrow whimsy, and I think we could all use a little more whimsy these days.”

Brooke Frischer, associate editor at Fashionista, has returned to Liang season after season. She told a similar story. “Despite the fact that I’ve been covering Sandy Liang’s shows for many years, the childlike joy I get out of attending her shows never fades—not even a little bit,” she noted. “There’s an intense delight I get out of watching Liang’s collections of fantastical, dreamy designs that tug at a younger version of myself.”

“I was never keen to present as a ‘girly’ child for reasons that are likely generally rooted in the patriarchy, and in many ways, Liang’s work gave my inner child the safe space to express that girlish side of me as an adult. I think a lot of the people I see every season at her shows share a similar sense of gratitude for the world she’s created.”

Advertisement

It’s safe to say that if the (dramatized) French queen were a Gen Z fashion darling, she’d be in the community, dressed head to toe in Liang. Where Coppola’s Y2K version paired ballgowns with Converse, Liang’s would wear a bow-covered minidress, a pair of bunny heels, and perhaps a sweatshirt from the Gap collaboration if she was feeling more casual. Or, perhaps, she would slip into a plaid miniskirt, à la Christy Lee, who graced the front row alongside her boyfriend, Post Malone.

$165.00 at sandyliang.info

The artist himself, on the other hand, proved that you don’t have to wear the clothes to love the world they belong in. He was representing the label as best he could by wearing its “Toy Tee”—a colorful play on the Toys R Us logo. “This is the only thing I can fit into,” he said. “I can’t wear any of it, but it’s cute, I love it.” Perhaps this should be a sign that Liang should venture into menswear.

At the Anna Sui show the day before, the community was just as close-knit—but multigenerational.

“I’m such the quintessential ‘Anna Sui girl,’” Karen Elson told Harper’s Bazaar inside Gramercy Park’s intimate and cozy, yet exclusive National Arts Club. The dark-academia setting, with its 125-year history, stained-glass windows, and art-covered wooden walls, felt made for the occasion. Guests dressed in earth-tone prints, retro plaids, loud furs, and funky boots reflected the room's blend of rich materials and historic curiosities. Elson, for one, embraced several of these principles, with a tan velvet coat trimmed with leopard-print fur and chunky black platforms.

Karen Elson and Anna Sui Jamie McCarthy - Getty Images

“Anna just represents the downtown cool girl, the girl who used to go to the flea market to find a vintage dress and a fake fur coat and make it into something magic. Anna has that magic,” the model continued. “She, as a friend, has taught me a lot about fashion. She’s such a curious person. Curious about books, fabrics, art, museums, literature. She’s such a hungry person for information and for knowledge and for the things she’s into—and you see it all in her fashion.”

You can see it, too, in the community she’s built with her brand over the past 35 years since its 1991 debut collection. Spanning multiple generations, Sui has attracted a mishmash of designers, models, and artists of all ages—who are all eager to pass along their love (and vintage pieces) to the next cohort of “Anna Sui girls.” Elson, for starters, sat front row to watch her daughter Scarlett White open the Fall 2026 show—nearly three decades after she first met Sui at age 18, when she herself walked her first-ever New York show.

The “full circle” feeling was echoed by many in the audience, including Sui’s longtime friend Marc Jacobs. Jacobs reminisced about encountering the designer on the rooftop at Danceteria, the New York dance club active during the same era as the British New Romantics subculture that inspired Sui’s Fall 2026 collection. “I might have seen her at a club, but the first time we met and talked was at Charivari, when I was working there,” he shared, referencing the now-closed avant-garde boutique where he got his start as a teenage stockboy. “She came in wearing all of her pirate regalia that she had made.”

Marc Jacobs at an Anna Sui event in New York City in 1992. WWD - Getty Images

He wasn't the only one whose memories of Sui involve vivid aesthetic imagery. “I love the world she’s built, and I love how many memories I have tied to her clothes over the years,” Sui’s niece, Jeannie Sui Wonders, shared from a few seats down, where she sat just as excited to see the show as the rest of the guests. “My silver beaded flapper-esque senior prom dress, these gorgeous wool and embroidered suede coats my mom would wear when I was growing up that I now steal from her, the first piece of clothing I ever got of hers which was this slinky skirt suit that I still love to wear out.”

Jeannie Sui Wonders, Stella Lucia, and Morgan Maher Jamie McCarthy - Getty Images

Family is embedded in the DNA of the brand, and for the Fall 2026 collection, that was made extra clear when Sui dedicated the collection to her mother. Speaking on the multigenerational impact of her brand, she summed it up clearly: “I think that we’re all the same. It rocks our world when we see a look, when we see an eyeliner, and it will never change. That’s what the excitement’s always been with Anna Sui. Everything resonates, the packaging, the color of the lipstick, the glitter, that’s all what it’s about, and I want to share that with all the young woman out there.”

You Might Also Like

4 Investment-Worthy Skincare Finds From Sephora

The 17 Best Retinol Creams Worth Adding to Your Skin Care Routine

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”