Melanie Press is the Small British Label That’s Thinking Big With NYC Pop-Up

May 10, 2019

Mark Holgate, Fashion News Director at U.S.Vogue writes:

'Melanie Press, a London designer who’s gaining a following for her easy bohemian dressing (just ask fans Ruth Negga and Rose Byrne) is joining Miuccia Prada and Louis Vuitton’s Nicolas Ghesquière in New York. She’s opening an NYC pop-up of her Primrose Hill boutique at the Rainbowwave showroom in Chelsea from May 3–7. (For more information, you can email at pressprimrosehill@gmail.com, or go to her website.) Of course, we’re in that “let’s go Resort” moment right now, with so many designers on the road: Maria Grazia Chiuri of Dior just showed in Marrakech, and Natacha Ramsay-Levi shows her newest Chloé collection in Shanghai on June 5.

I don’t think Melanie Press would be at all upset here if we make the point that she’s not exactly working with the same mega-budgets that those other designers are. Yet in its own way her impulse to pack up and show elsewhere isn’t so different from many others: Do something global without sacrificing a sense of experience and intimacy. Even the smallest independent designers need to be rethinking how they can get their name out there and let people get a sense of what they do in a way that doesn’t involve a touch-sensitive screen. And at a time when so much of the political climate (wrongly and shamefully) is about turning inward—many London designers are pushing against the impact of Brexit—why not resist it, and joyfully connect with the big wide world that’s out there? “Brexit forced me to think out of the box,” Press says. “And being small means I can move quickly.”'

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