In the days leading up to Tuesday’s debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump, as Ms. Harris was hunkering down to prepare, Ella Emhoff, her stepdaughter, was keeping busy herself at New York Fashion Week.
A model, textile artist and sometime knitwear designer (her needlepoint artwork is currently on display at a pop-up Barneys New York store in downtown Manhattan), Ms. Emhoff, 25, came into the public eye after Ms. Harris was elected vice president in 2020. She has since steadily worked for domestic and international fashion brands. But this is her first fashion week cycle as the stepchild of a candidate at the top of a major party’s ticket.
Ms. Emhoff, with her Secret Service detail, attended some dozen runway shows and events throughout fashion week in New York, including parties for J.Crew and Refinery29 and shows for Proenza Schouler, Susan Alexandra, Collina Strada and Tory Burch. (She also appeared in a social media video promoting Tory Burch.)
Ms. Emhoff wasn’t made available for interviews, and she declined to comment when approached at the Sandy Liang show on Sunday — where she wore a cerulean skirt set and had a front-row seat to observe the candy-colored mini dresses in the brand’s new collection. She arrived at the show in a black S.U.V. with tinted windows, and was ushered to her seat by two female Secret Service agents in matching navy suits.
On Monday, the day before Ms. Harris’s debate with Mr. Trump, Ms. Emhoff walked in Coach’s runway show. A Coach representative said in a statement that casting Ms. Emhoff was not political. “Ella represents our design aesthetic,” read the statement, “but her participation is not in any way an endorsement of any political candidate or position.”
Later that day, Ms. Emhoff attended a party Thom Browne hosted for his namesake brand at the Commerce Inn restaurant in the West Village. Mr. Browne, who has dressed Ms. Emhoff for numerous occasions in the past few years — including the recent Democratic convention — said on a call that he sees her the same way now as he did before Ms. Harris became the Democrats’ presidential nominee.
“I never do things for marketing purposes,” the designer added. “I work with people I see as interesting.”
A Thom Browne representative who was on the call then quickly interjected, describing how “the experience and energy” around Ms. Emhoff, and the media’s interest in her, “is more in your face now.”
Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta, the founders and designers of Eckhaus Latta, also had Ms. Emhoff at their brand’s show on Sunday. They gave her an outfit for it, and at a fitting ahead of the show, the designers asked if they could cast her Secret Service agents as runway models. “We got a hard no,” Ms. Latta said.
Anthony Guglielmi, the chief of communications for the Secret Service, said he had no knowledge of the designers’ request. “It would be against protocol for agents to participate in the program,” he added. “Their role is to provide the highest level of protection for Ms. Emhoff.”
Shop Talk: Luxury Baseball Caps and Purple Hiking Boots
Idiosyncratic Shoes
Blackbird Spyplane, a fashion newsletter that has attracted a niche but devoted audience with its coverage of eclectic topics like museum gift shops and Adam Sandler’s style, is expanding its offline presence with a new boot designed in collaboration with Oboz Footwear, a company in Bozeman, Mont., that specializes in hiking shoes.
Jonah Weiner, a founder of the newsletter, said that while hiking through Claremont Canyon in Oakland, Calif., with his co-founder, Erin Wylie, the pair encountered various “East Bay crunchy elders” wearing Oboz’s Sawtooth II Low boot, a style they had not clocked before. Mr. Weiner, who is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, described the footwear as having “insectoid cutouts on the side and Y2K David Cronenberg energy.”
After featuring the Sawtooth II Low boot in an edition of the newsletter, Mr. Weiner said, a designer at Oboz reached out to him and Ms. Wylie. Working with the brand, they developed a new version of the boot, called Purple Earth, with an exterior that mixes purple oiled suede and brown mesh. The shoe, which costs $175, will be available at select stores and online starting later this month.
Store Snapshots
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Alaïa has released a small collection of limited-edition pieces to commemorate its recent fashion show at the Guggenheim Museum. The items, which will be available only at the brand’s SoHo store through September, include ballet flats, jeans, a T-shirt and branded merch like a $490 baseball cap with “NYC Alaïa” embroidered on the front.
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Megan Renee, House of Aama and Harbison, three brands with Black founders, recently introduced new collections designed exclusively for Nordstrom as part of the department store’s ongoing partnership with Harlem’s Fashion Row, an initiative that promotes designers of color. Pieces from each label’s line are priced from $45 to $299, are available in sizes from XXS to XXL, and are being sold online and at 20 Nordstrom locations around the country.
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Arc’teryx, known for its technical apparel and outdoor gear, recently opened its largest store worldwide in SoHo. The two-floor space at 580 Broadway is the brand’s fourth location in New York City and includes a theater, a repair center for clothes and accessories, and an in-store cafe with seat cushions made from recycled jackets.
Three Questions for Dior’s C.E.O.
On Tuesday, Delphine Arnault, the chief executive of Christian Dior, the second-largest fashion brand in the portfolio of LVMH (the luxury conglomerate founded by her father, Bernard Arnault), handed a check for 400,000 euros (about $443,000) to the Swedish designer Ellen Hodakova Larsson of Hodakova, the winner of the 2024 LVMH Prize.
The annual award is considered the most prestigious recognition of emerging design talent. Ms. Hodakova Larsson said after receiving the prize that she planned to put the money toward developing the infrastructure necessary to source the secondhand materials with which she crafts her brand’s moody clothes. The Irish label Standing Ground and Duran Lantink, a Dutch brand, received supplementary awards at this year’s prize ceremony.
After the event, Ms. Arnault, who is on LVMH’s executive committee and its board of directors, shared her thoughts about what makes brands desirable today in a brief interview, which has been edited and condensed.
What makes a young brand stick out to you these days, when shoppers have so much to choose from?
We had eight finalists out of 2,500 applicants. You need to have a specific product that is unique and refined, and you have to meet a commercial reality. You have to have a client that’s coveting your product, and ensure it has durability.
What do you think people are looking to buy? What’s moving the needle?
I think embellishments and crafts and a lot of elements of working with the hand are very important today. More and more, people want to be dressed in a way that’s quite unique, they want products that are special. This year, we created the Savoir-Faire Prize that’s centered around know-how and quality.
Your role as Dior’s chief executive is relatively new. How do you find time to run this prize while working in that job?
I have great teams, so it’s not about just doing this alone. It’s an honor and a very big responsibility.
Browsing for … Moisturizers
Senti Senti, a retailer that specializes in beauty products from Japan and South Korea, has stores in Manhattan and Brooklyn and caters to customers nationwide through its e-commerce business. The lead-up to fall is a time when some shoppers start “looking to change their moisturizer to something with a creamier, thicker texture,” said Marie Del Rosario, an area manager at the company.
Ms. Del Rosario said that panthenol, an ingredient derived from vitamin B5, is part of the formulas of some of the newest moisturizers this season. “It helps the barrier of skin and makes your skin stronger,” she said. Products incorporating centella, a plant extract said to have soothing properties, have also been a favorite among Senti Senti customers. “After panthenol, it’s the No. 1 ingredient people are looking for,” Ms. Del Rosario said.
Popular with customers in New York: Round Lab Birch Juice Moisturizing Sun Cream ($24.99). “It’s a sunscreen, but it’s very creamy, so a lot of shoppers use it as a moisturizer,” Ms. Del Rosario said, adding that birch juice “is great for soothing and smoothing the skin.”
Popular with customers in Texas: Etude House Soonjung 2x Barrier Intensive Cream ($19.99). Ms. Del Rosario said it “has panthenol to protect the skin in a harsh environment like Texas that’s super dry and unpredictable.”
Popular with customers in Michigan: Torriden Dive-In Soothing Cream ($25.99). “Michigan is a super-cold environment, so it makes sense for this to be super popular,” Ms. Del Rosario said. “It has hyaluronic acid in it, which is an ingredient proven to add moisture to the skin.”
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