NYFW RUNWAY FA25
my Hand Embroidery walking the runway
Yes, you read that right! My hand embroidery got its moment under the NYFW lights and I couldn’t be prouder. Here’s how it happened: the company I work for needed embroidery done for our runway show, and I immediately volunteered. Fun fact I actually used to teach embroidery to little kids at a fashion school when I was in high school. So, naturally, I was up for the challenge.
We started with the beads, ordering from online vendors and hunting through the tiny bead and sequin shops in Midtown. Everything had to work beautifully with our partner for the show: Swarovski crystals. Finding beads that could hold their own next to Swarovski sparkle was a quest of its own. Once the beads arrived, we experimented with shapes and layouts to match the mood and theme of the collection. The embroidery was only going on two main runway garments and twelve pairs of gloves, so it all had to feel cohesive and intentional.
Next came testing and lots of it. I practiced on an embroidery hoop, first with leather (the gloves’ material), then with velvet for the garments. Leather is stiff — even with a leather needle, it was tough to get that delicate lift you need to work tiny beads through. My solution? Chiffon! If the beads were stitched tight enough, I could cut away the surrounding chiffon and use it to attach the embroidery to the leather and velvet pieces. This let multiple people work on the flowers at once, which saved so much time. In the end, the whole process took about three months from start to finish — but the embroidery itself was done in just two weeks. And those two weeks? Let’s just say they were full of late nights, finger cramps, and my poor neck permanently hunched over my loom. Shoutout to my acrylic nails, though, they were lifesavers when pushing needles through the leather.
But hard work really does pay off. Watching the embroidery sparkle down the runway, the loose beads swaying with the models’ movement, it was magical. I was sitting with my friends pointing out every piece: “Hey! I did that glove! And that glove! OMG here comes the skirt! The dress! I did that!” It might seem small — just some flower embroidery — but to me, it means so much. It’s a reminder that I’m moving forward in the industry, one stitch at a time. It’s proof to myself that I am on the right track and to my parents that those college payments are really paying off — glove by glove, sequin by sequin. It was such a proud moment for me, and I’m already starting to collaborate with the designers for the Spring/Summer ‘26 show this September. You know I’ll be posting all about it — stay tuned!
By Nicole Phelps, Vogue.com
