alice + olivia: Fall 2025 Collection, “Shakespeare Is In Love”
WHO: Stacey Bendet joined by Lana Condor, Julianne Hough, Tiffany Haddish, Anna Cathcart, Gavin Casalegno, Ming Lee Simmons, Princess Nokia, Leonie Hanne, Bambi Northwood- Blyth, Jenny Mollen, Tina Craig, Loren Gray, Emira D’Spain, Ella Stiller, Pritika Swarup, Caroline Vazzana, Katie Fang, Dani Stahl and more.
WHAT: alice + olivia by Stacey Bendet showcased its Fall 2025 Collection, inspired by the works of William Shakespeare. The presentation featured a live DJ set by Zoe Gitter, as guests sipped Casamigos cocktails in theme with the collection: the Casa Capulet ginger margarita and the Casa Montague paloma.
WHEN: Saturday, February 8, 2024 3pm - 5pm EST
WHERE: Highline Stages, 441 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10014
ASSETS: BFA Photographers | Joe Schildhorn & Sansho Scott
WireImage Photographers | Dimitrios Kambouris & Astrid Stawiarz
SPECIAL THANKS TO: Gorgie, Casamigos, TYMO, Kate Somerville, Bobbi Brown, Salon Perfect, Ardell, Hollywood Fashion Tape, and Mary Giuliani Catering.
In fair New York, where we lay our scene, a fashion story unfolds in gowns, capelets and puff sleeves…
February 8, 2025 (New York, NY) – For Fall 2025, alice + olivia by Stacey Bendet unveiled a production of unprecedented theatricality: a textured, romantic, and fantastical collection inspired by the world of William Shakespeare and costumes of The Royal Shakespeare Company. With stage worthy flourishes like lace collars and cuffs, the collection takes the characters and finery of the great playwright’s beloved stories and reimagines them for modern women and occasions.
Stacey Bendet infused Fall 2025 with elements of romance and drama to evoke the characters, language and imagery of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets. The intricate fabrications and regal silhouettes in the collection were developed from a dream starting point: the costumes that brought the most famous plays in the world to life. The design story began in Stratfordupon-Avon, a medieval English town renowned as the 16th-century birthplace of William Shakespeare, and home of The Royal Shakespeare Company. There, the alice + olivia design team immersed themselves in Shakespeare’s world, with special access to the RSC’s worldclass theatre archive and costume hire collections; featuring historic costume items from the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in 1879 to the present day.
Visiting the Royal Shakespeare Company’s costume workshops, the largest in-house costumemaking department of any British theatre, there was opportunity to glean inspiration from millinery and jewelry, armory, dyeing and footwear, all showcasing the costume-makers’ remarkable artistry, craft and embellishment.
This immersion in the RSC’s costume tradition comes through in the dramatic silhouettes of Fall 2025’s 16th-century inspired lantern skirts and capes, lace ornamented cuffs and collars, and jacquard illuminated with touches of gold. Literary references to Shakespeare’s poetry and plays are chicly incorporated into the clothes, from an embroidered skirt of sonnets, to a Lady Macbeth inspired black velvet full-skirted corset dress, and a Shakespeare themed ball gown. In the mix with velvet party dresses, are lace bodysuits and modern mini tweed skirt-and-blazer sets, the details that come to life for today’s Juliets.
“The beauty of this collection exemplifies how we can learn so much from the past to create in the present. “ – Stacey Bendet, CEO and founder of alice + olivia.
Denim jackets with bouquets of brooches, corsets styled with jeans, and suede stretch and latex leggings give the alice + olivia Shakespearean fantasy a modern, rock-and-roll baroque feel. Each luxe texture, from pearls to velvet, bows and applique, could inspire a sonnet. Famous lines of dialogue are cleverly threaded through the embroidery and prints in the collection, from The Merchant of Venice’s “All that glisters is not gold,” to A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s “Though she be but little, she is fierce.”
Many more quotes were incorporated into the Fall 2025 presentation’s sets, staged with each room a luxe set representing a Shakespearean play or serving as an homage to his work. Moving from the blooming set of A Midsummer Night’s Dream through to Juliet’s balcony looking over her garden, to quintessential Shakespearean banquet and apothecary, another homage to Romeo and Juliet, all contain the collection’s glowing characters. There is an elaborate gold backdrop that invokes The Merchant of Venice, and the ornate world lands on a final Shakespeare quote from All’s Well That Ends Well: “Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”
Modern Juliet inspired hairstyles featured big, jeweled braids adorned with cascading flowers, crafted by lead stylist Matthew Curtis. For makeup, T Cooper designed a clean-face look with glistening gold eyes and a bold Lady Macbeth red lip. Kate Somerville added stage-worthy shimmer to the body by blending moisturizing cream with gold flakes.
ABOUT ALICE + OLIVIA BY STACEY BENDET
Launched in 2002, alice + olivia by Stacey Bendet is a brand that allows women to express their personal style. With clothing that juxtaposes the whimsical and flirty with the sexy and sophisticated, a+o epitomizes the personality and perspective of its founder, Stacey Bendet. The brand was born from Stacey’s personal quest to create the perfect pair of pants and has since grown into a full lifestyle collection including ready-to-wear, gowns, shoes, handbags and accessories. The brand is a Hollywood favorite with celebrity fans including Meghan Markle, Michelle Obama, Beyonce, Gwyneth Paltrow, Gigi Hadid and Jessica Alba. alice + olivia by Stacey Bendet is available at the brand’s free-standing boutiques located across the Globe, aliceandolivia.com, and is available at over 800 select department and specialty stores worldwide. alice + olivia by Stacey Bendet will soon be launching in the Philippines at Greenbelt, Central Square, and Rustan's Makati.
About SSI Group, Inc.:
The SSI Group is the Philippines’ largest specialty retailer, with an established brand portfolio that includes some of the world’s most recognized international brands. We lead the country’s specialty retail market through the size and breadth of our brand portfolio and store network, with 94 brands and 593 stores. With our growing e-commerce presence, we are also the Philippine specialty retailer with the most diverse and extensive e-commerce offering. Our unique brand portfolio covers a wide range of specialty and lifestyle concepts, spanning the luxury, casual, and fast fashion, beauty, footwear, home, and restaurant categories. Established in the 1980s, SSI has been at the forefront of the Philippine retail industry for more than 30 years. Throughout this time, we have sought to inspire and enhance the lifestyle values of our customers and to cater to the evolving tastes and aspirations of Filipino consumers. In response to the evolution of the retail industry, the company introduced "The Specialist," an At Home concierge service dedicated to serving its valued customers with their shopping needs. Customers may get in touch with SSI’s Customer Service team through any of the following channels to inquire about a particular brand or product:
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