Butterfly by Nelle L’Amour
CHAPTER 58
Harper
HURST SOARS INTO READY-TO-WEAR
By Harper Albright
Executive Editor for Fashionista
Exclusive Photographs by Vincent Garcia
Last night, inside the domed, glass-enclosed vivarium of New York’s American Museum of Natural History, the House of Hurst’s Roman Hurst not only showed his extraordinary new couture collection but also premiered his first ready-to-wear HOH line.
Inspired by the beauty of butterflies, the intricate couture gowns looked as if they could take flight in the air, with their vibrant colors and patterns, the dazzling, wing-like layers of silk fluttering as the models flew down the plant-lined runway amidst hundreds of exotic butterflies flitting around them. The gowns featured hand-painted butterflies created by artist Sofi Lockhart, whose striking acrylic paintings exhibited outside the venue, were auctioned off to benefit the museum’s Butterfly Conservatory. Models held jeweled butterfly-shaped minaudières, and wore whimsical headpieces that resembled antennae.
The ready-to-wear line, which preceded it, was equally dazzling. Models, clad in billowing chiffon skirts and dresses in eye-catching colors that were paired with assorted butterfly-patterned leggings, flitted down the runway with the carefree ease today’s modern woman is seeking. Some were cocooned in earth-tone puffer jackets that were left open to reveal the emerging beauty that lay beneath. Every woman this spring will want to be a butterfly, as free and expressive as Roman Hurst has willed them to be.
The show culminated with the customary bride taking her walk down the runway. The bride—artist Sofi Lockhart. The gown was a breathtaking cloud of white silk, tulle, and lace, accompanied by a spectacular thirty-foot cathedral veil that trailed down the runway with appliquéd clusters of pearl-accented butterflies grazing the floor.
In a rare, unprecedented appearance, reclusive designer Roman Hurst took a walk down the runway with his adorable little muse, Mariposa Suarez. Dressed in an elegant black tuxedo and a cobalt-blue butterfly bowtie, the dashing master of haute couture joined his bride, took his bow, and to the audience’s astonishment, got down on one knee and proposed to her. The audience oohed and aahed, then applauded with rapture, together with his fleet of models and seamstresses as he placed a spectacular butterfly-inspired diamond ring on her finger and she breathlessly agreed to marry him. Immediately after they embraced, attendees, many in tears, released white butterflies from the jars they were each given. Circling the couple like confetti, they were a sight to behold.
This wasn’t fashion as fantasy. It was fashion as an elegy to nature and to the exquisite delicate winged creatures, living testaments that different species can live together in peace and harmony regardless of color and origin.
And it was a testament to the power of love.