A dress fashioned from dozens of pink and red orchids against a purple backdrop

Florals in Fashion: Behind the Scenes of The Orchid Show

March 21

6:30–8 p.m. | Online

Join us as we go behind the scenes of NYBG’s The Orchid Show: Florals in Fashion with designers Hillary Taymour of Collina Strada, Olivia Cheng of Dauphinette, and Kristen Alpaugh of FLWR PSTL, in a dynamic conversation moderated by Vanessa Friedman, fashion director and chief fashion critic of The New York Times‘ “Styles” section.

Each designer will reveal the inspiration and process behind their living couture creations on view in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, as well as what it was like to work directly with NYBG experts to create the dramatic, picture-perfect orchid displays that express their creative flare.

About the Speakers

A person in a white button down shirt with long brown hair poses for a photo in front of a white backdrop

Collina Strada isn’t just a fashion label, it’s also a platform for social issues and awareness created by Hillary Taymour, whose main concern is staying true to her craft, and staying on course to becoming a fully sustainable and radically transparent brand. Based and manufactured in New York, the brand’s cult-status core pieces transcend trends. Taymour’s designs are imbued with a fearlessly fluid attitude, re-inventing classics and unexpected details.

Collina Strada embodies humor and youth. The brand DNA is now firmly cemented in the ability to look inward, even when loud and expressive on the outside. Season after season, Collina Strada’s goal remains the same: to encourage self-reflection through clothing. How can you be the best version of yourself today? Showing each season on the official New York Fashion Week schedule, Collina Strada has reimagined their shows to spur others into action, tackling global problems from racism to politics. “We are in a crucial state of change right now and the more we do, the more we can impact others to take action,” says Hillary Taymour.

A person with long dark hair, wearing black pants and a white button down shirt, poses in a yellow chair for a photo

Olivia Cheng is the founder and Chief Creative Officer of the luxury clothing brand Dauphinette. At age 19 and with only $2,000, Cheng founded Dauphinette as a collection of upcycled outwear, calling it “The Happiest Brand on Earth.” Since then, Cheng has parlayed her passion for underappreciated and unconventional materials into everything from her famous resin-preserved jewelry to the couture-like pieces that go down Dauphinette’s New York Fashion Week runways that feature 50% upcycled materials.

In 2021, Cheng became the youngest designer to showcase her designs as part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s In America: A Lexicon of Fashion exhibit, and last year she was named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 Art and Style list. As Dauphinette’s West Village flagship in New York City has quickly turned into one of the downtown crowd’s favorite shopping spots, Cheng sets her sights on incorporating upcycling into the global luxury fashion vernacular, expanding the world of Dauphinette through activations in Los Angeles, Miami, Paris, and beyond.

A person with long brown hair poses for a photo while surrounded by blue and red flowers

FLWR PSTL, Kristen Alpaugh, is a pioneering botanical artist with a unique form of floristry through innovative techniques and approaches to the field. Her experimental work, a blend of natural beauty, fine art and high fashion, has graced the pages of The New York Times,The Los Angeles Times, Architectural Digest, and Vogue. Alpaugh showcased her talents on HBO Max’s Full Bloom in 2020 and, in 2022, made history at New York’s Museum of Arts and Design with the groundbreaking exhibit Flower Craft.

In 2020, she founded Haus of Stems, the world’s first on-demand botanical art atelier. This innovative venture ships luxury hand-painted flowers, adorned with FLWR PSTL’s proprietary holographic finishes, to florists and floral enthusiasts across the U.S. and Canada. In the new and enchanting world of botanical art, FLWR PSTL passionately crafts stories that ignite the senses, encouraging viewers to lose themselves between the real and the rarefied.

A person in a black shirt poses for a black and white photo

Vanessa Friedman is the fashion director and chief fashion critic of The New York Times’s “Styles” section. She focuses on fashion as an expression of political, social, and cultural identity at a specific time, especially how those in the public eye use it to communicate values and influence opinion. Friedman joined The Times in 2014 after 11 years at the Financial Times. She was the FT’s first fashion editor, and the FT was her first all-fashion job. Before that, Vanessa focused on culture coverage in magazines like InStyle, The Economist, and The New Yorker. She is a Princeton University graduate with a B.A. in history.

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Florals in Fashion: Behind the Scenes of The Orchid Show

About the Speakers

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