Kicking off NYFW and just in time for Valentine’s Day, Alison Bruhn and Delia Folk from The Style That Binds Us joined forces with Elyce Arons, co-founder of Frances Valentine and Kate Spade, on Thursday, February 8th for a festive event to honor the clothing brand that makes fashion feel fun again.
Frances Valentine’s Mission:
“We believe personal style is a mood-boosting, conversation-sparking, confidence-building celebration of a life well-lived. It’s a timeless pursuit; a form of self expression that only gets better with age because it’s evolving in real time – just like us.
At Frances Valentine, we make clothes with heart, soul, and a story to tell – clothes that inspire you to tell yours. Clothes that make you smile every time you open your wardrobe. Clothes that make fashion feel fun again, that transcend trends and spark joy, year after year, decade after decade, generation after generation. We make clothes that create connection and friendships.”
Taking place at Frances Valentine’s beautiful boutique, located at 922 Madison Avenue, friends and fashion lovers filtered into the welcoming and stylish space promptly at 6pm.
Love was in the air as loyal Frances Valentine customers mingled with familiar faces and new friends they had just met that night.
Frances Valentine offers a chic collection of apparel, accessories, gift items and even fragrance that every woman could ever possibly want and need. Attendees moved throughout the boutique to admire the thoughtful setup and Frances Valentine’s must have items.
Vibrant pops of pink can be found throughout the store. The clothing from Frances Valentine’s most recent and newest collection was pristinely placed on hangers and folded for display. A variety of slides and block heeled shoes were amongst the clothing that it paired so perfectly with.
The store added an extra sparkle with Frances Valentine’s stunning, one of a kind selection of jewelry that included shimmering beaded bracelets and earrings.
As Bruhn, Folk and Arons took their seats on the plush white couch, guests gathered around to listen to their inspiring conversation.
Promptly beginning at 6:40pm, Arons was asked to share Frances Valentine’s story.
Arons noted that in 2014, she and her best friend, Kate Spade, started working on Frances Valentine, officially launching it in 2016 with handbags and shoes.
“Sadly, we lost Kate in 2018,” said Arons, “We had always been collectors of vintage clothes together, we loved vintage, mostly because it was budget friendly, so we took a couple of pieces of Kate’s favorite, one was an embroidered kaftan and another was a hand embroidered sweater and I thought as a tribute to her let’s make those items.”
The women were dressed beautifully in looks from Frances Valentine’s newest collection, in which Arons said, “It’s all joyful dressing and as you know we like to pick vintage silhouettes that are nostalgic and reminiscent. I just think of my mom getting ready when I was young and just staring up at her. She was so beautiful and so made up. It’s finding those pieces, the silhouettes, but making them more modern in modern fabrications, putting pockets in just about every single thing we do because everybody’s got a phone and we know you don’t always want to carry a bag with you.”
Arons added that they design, “Things that you want to keep for the rest of your life in your closet or pass down to your daughter or granddaughter.”
Bruhn and Folk were wearing two dresses from Frances Valentine’s newest Spring 2024 collection in which Arons revealed, “These prints that you are wearing are called Prosecco, which I love!” She went on to reveal that the print that both Bruhn and Folk were wearing is old from France, “I want to say it was from 1950 or 60. It’s proprietary to us because nobody else owns it which is really great.”
Pointing at Bruhn’s ensemble, Arons noted, “Your dress is particularly interesting to me. We’ve taken it all the way through the rest of the year because it is such a great silhouette. It is a stretch shift dress underneath and then you got this really beautiful organza piece that goes over the top. For a woman my age, I always want my arms covered, so it covers your arms or you can lift the whole thing up and throw it over your back and be sleeveless if you wanted to so it’s really great.”
Arons turned around to further explain the February collection, “Behind me, we have a lot of pink, a lot of red, a lot of different silhouettes that you can wear to weddings or more casually you can take on vacation and we have a lot of basics to that we always do.”
Bruhn asked Arons to delve deeper into Frances Valentine’s design process, in which she described, “We really start with our prints and fabrics and we go to the fabric show, all the leather shows because we have to develop shoes, handbags and apparel all at the same time.”
The team goes all over the world so they meet with a lot of vintage print folks who collect prints that are from the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s.
Arons continued on to say, “We own the prints, we scale them to the right silhouette and then we start putting them in the silhouettes that we know our customers really like. So about 60% of the collection are current silhouettes and the other 40% are new every single season. We do it on a CAD so we see it in 3D and then we send off for the first sample with all the specifications and get the first samples back and it’s like Christmas time. Every time we get a sample I’m like ‘oh my god!’ It’s really exciting.”
To learn more about Frances Valentine and shop their newest collection, visit their website linked here.
Carlie Lou Madlinger 