Inside TASSEL: Les Adore Brings Emerging Designers and Community to NYFW

Written and photographed by Ezzah Rafique | October 6, 2026

Amina Salahou started Les Adore in her college dorm room with a magazine and an idea: to create a place where young creatives could see themselves reflected in fashion. Since its 2023 launch, the platform has grown into a creative production network, bringing that vision beyond its pages and into rooms where designers and audiences can connect.

This New York Fashion Week (NYFW), Les Adore’s runway show and brunch, TASSEL, featured four designers: Nokshi New York, Kymi, Cleah Jolie and Chunni. The lineup brought together distinct perspectives, from bridal pieces designed to be worn beyond the wedding day to statement looks incorporating Indian handbeading. The event paired fashion with meaningful conversation between Fernanda Ramirez and Sofi (The Odditty), moderated by Salahou, allowing designers to share their work and for Les Adore’s growing community to connect beyond the page.

“Fashion never really felt like a choice; it’s more of a feeling,” said Salahou

For Salahou, fashion began as a form of personal expression. Growing up in Syracuse, New York, she shared clothes with her sisters and experimented with different ways of dressing. During the pandemic, that curiosity expanded into makeup and styling, giving her another outlet to explore her creativity. Her decision to pursue fashion seriously was during college.

“What pulled me into the industry more seriously was a hard moment in college. During my sophomore fall, I lost a close friend, and it made me realize I needed to stop waiting. That winter break, with New York Fashion Week coming up, I sent out cold emails and connected with people who are now mentors to me. It was painful, but it’s also the beauty of art and creativity; it’s always tied to emotion. I launched Les Adore the following fall to bring the inspiration and confidence I felt in the fashion scene back to my community,” Salahou shared.

As a Harvard graduate who studied history of science with a secondary in computer science, Salahou officially launched Les Adore on International Day of the Girl Child (a global observance recognizing the power, potential, and achievements of girls worldwide while raising awareness of the unique challenges and gender inequalities they face) on Oct. 11, 2023. 

“The original idea actually started on Instagram. I had a friend in LA, Casey; we were like Instagram crush friends, and we started talking about taking the aesthetics we loved online, styling, fashion, being edgy, and turning it into something real. We tried to figure it out together and it didn’t fully work out, but the idea stayed with me. In the fall, I was in my room and I thought, you know what, I’m going to make a magazine,” said Salahou.

With the first issue published a month after the launch of Les Adore, it explored the juxtaposition of girlhood. Les Adore has since produced six editorial issues and expanded into film and photography production, events, a long-form writing platform called “The Argent Club,” and a newsletter called “Slice of Life,” while also hosting pop-ups, parties and various events. Through those formats, the purpose has remained consistent: to bring creatives together and give their work a place to be seen and felt.

“The biggest lesson was to stop waiting for permission. Once I stopped trying to fit into someone else’s version of Fashion Week and started creating my own, hosting events, building community, putting emerging creatives at the center, it became mine. I navigated it on my own terms by building Les Adore as the thing I wished existed when I first showed up,” she said when asked about navigating New York Fashion Week with Les Adore.

Taking the community to New York: TASSLE during NYFW 2026

Les Adore brought their debut show and a conversation pit to NYFW on Sept. 13, intended to bring people together to create meaningful relationships and connections.

“The vision behind moving into real-life experiences was to let people feel Les Adore instead of just reading it,” she said.

Salahou said attendees at earlier Les Adore events had met friends, collaborators and even roommates. Those connections motivated her to create another gathering during Fashion Week, this time focusing on bringing visibility to emerging designers. Along with a runway, Salahou moderated a conversation pit for guests to hear from “A Better You” podcast host Fernanda Ramirez and “Am I Too Loud” host & digital creator Sofi as panelists.

For Salahou, bringing people together extends beyond a single afternoon. She said attendees at previous Les Adore events built relationships from friends to collaborators and even roommates, which motivates her to keep creating those spaces.

A Look Into The Emerging Designers at TASSEL

The four-brand lineup offered different approaches to femininity, craftsmanship and occasion dressing.

Nokshi New York, led by Sabrin Sultana, emphasizes craftsmanship and responsible production. The brand operates an in-house atelier in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and uses deadstock fabrics, with stated commitments to worker empowerment and supply chain transparency.

Kymi, founded by best friends Kylie Rubin and Mimi Moritz, approaches dressing through playful details and nostalgic silhouettes. The brand describes its pieces as handmade in Los Angeles and draws inspiration from the founders’ mothers, placing friendship and individuality at the center of its identity.

Alongside them, Cleah Jolie and Chunni brought collections rooted in personal stories, with design details that made those influences visible.

A Deeper Look into Cleah Jolie & Chunni

For Cleah Dyer, bridal fashion is an opportunity to connect celebration with individuality. Her brand, Cleah Jolie (CJ), balances sophistication and playfulness while considering how a wedding wardrobe can live beyond the ceremony. CJ focuses on creating an authentic way to be timeless and classic.

“The dresses, skirts, and bodices are meant to be worn beyond the ceremony and receptions, making it so you can carry a piece of joy from that day into other celebratory events or gatherings,” Dyer told HAZZE MEDIA. “My goal is to listen to brides’ honest needs and interests to create pieces that make them feel beautiful. I want a dress to represent that I’ve understood their story, with my own running alongside it.”

The designs presented at TASSEL began as Dyer’s Cornell University senior collection in March 2025. For the event, she showed reworked pieces developed with production groups to improve their craftsmanship. She described the collection as a transition from student work to an emerging brand. That evolution includes a modular approach to dressing. 

The Alyce Mini, a short dress styled with gloves and a bow at the back, used the same corset bodice as the Beth Gown, which featured a tied column skirt. Rather than treating each look as a separate outfit, Dyer designed components that could take on different forms.

“The dresses, skirts, and bodices are meant to be worn beyond the ceremony and receptions, making it so you can carry a piece of joy from that day into other celebratory events or gatherings,” she said.

Her favorite piece, the Savannah Rose Gown, reflects both her design process and the relationships surrounding it. The gown emerged while she was revising an earlier idea in college and was named after her best friend and college roommate. 

“When I was first designing [the Savannah Rose Gown] in college, I had a different idea in mind and as a way to fix it, the rose gown came to be. It’s the embodiment of… trying to connect my personal design aesthetic with feedback and white spaces identified by brides I've worked with in the past,” Dyer shares.

Storytelling also informed the presentation. Dyer selected the runway music to convey the emotion she associates with the collection and the experience of building her brand alongside friends. She said several people later told her they had teared up while watching.

“Being able to tell a story with my work and leave people feeling emotional both while physically in the gown and engaging with the brand is a key element of the CJ ethos,” she said.

As Cleah Jolie develops, Dyer said her priorities include completing the 13-look collection and offering in-person appointments so brides can try on the pieces.

For Chunni founders Esha Kaul and Nikhita Khosa, clothing has long been a way to stay connected to Indian culture while expressing their own tastes. Dedicated to slow fashion, their pieces are handcrafted by a team of artisans based in India using traditional craftsmanship methods and high-quality fabrics.

“We support the livelihoods of our artisans in India whose hand embroidery and traditional craftsmanship methods are a dying art, and we use the highest quality fabrics and methods (no machine embroidery, for example),” they said.

Kaul and Khosa come from finance and technology backgrounds, but fashion was a creative outlet well before they launched a business. Khosa grew up designing dresses for fun, while Kaul experimented with a sewing machine. Growing up in the United States, they saw an opportunity to bring elements of Indian clothing and craftsmanship into contemporary pieces.

“Chunni is for every it-girl, everywhere… Indian fashion is known for its beading, color and intricate details, and we love bringing those elements into pieces that might otherwise feel simple, like a mini skirt,” they told HAZZE MEDIA.

The handwork also tells a story about production. At TASSEL, Chunni presented the pink Anjali dress and orange two-piece Diya Set. Both looks featured the bold color and detailed beadwork central to the brand and designed to shine. According to Kaul and Khosa, the Diya Skirt required 50 hours of handbeading by their artisans in India. 

“The Anjali dress was the first piece we released when we launched our brand about a year ago [and] it went viral on social media… [becoming] our best-seller. We’ve seen our it-girls wear it for birthdays, European summers, galas and date nights, so seeing it on the runway felt like a full-circle moment and a reminder of how far the brand has come in such a short time,” Kaul and Khosa shared.

Bringing Chunni to NYFW through TASSEL felt surreal to Kaul and Khosa, who see this event as a meaningful milestone. With their intricate beadwork and eye for detail, Chunni aims to be a go-to brand for girls who need an elevated look, a fun date night or party outfit, or even a statement piece on vacation. 

Chunni plans to introduce another collection in the next couple of months while creating more opportunities to connect with their community through in-person experiences. Chunni is available online or at Hauteline in New York’s Lower East Side. 

What Comes After TASSEL?

For Salahou, producing TASSEL brought its own lessons. She learned to delegate, trust collaborators, and stay calm when plans changed. Building a welcoming event required the same collaboration she hoped guests would find. Salahou creates beautifully inclusive spaces for people who identify as women and for media that reflects a wider range of creative voices.

“People didn’t just attend, they engaged, they gushed about the designers’ work, they took photos, they celebrated these creatives like they were already household names. That’s the whole point of Les Adore: reverence for creative talent before the industry catches on. Seeing that reverence live, from people who showed up with open hearts, told me we’re doing exactly what we set out to do,” Salahou said.

When asked what she hoped someone would feel when attending a Les Adore event or opening an issue, Salahou’s answer was simple: inspired, included and fun. While attending TASSEL myself, I can confidently say that Salahou, the team behind Les Adore, and the designers successfully came together to create a warm and inviting space for everyone. Each person was open to networking, sharing stories, and pointing out their favorite moments from the event with each other. It felt like a true community.

Her intention also speaks to what she believes may be missing from the Fashion Week landscape. While many events may feel closed off or exclusive, she aims to create a genuine entry point for young creatives without established industry connections. Through Les Adore, Salahou wants to build welcoming spaces for women and a platform that reflects the diversity of the people shaping fashion.

“This time around, standing in the room and seeing Nokshi’s and Cleah Jolie’s work worn, celebrated, and photographed by an audience that genuinely cared, that was the payoff. I looked around at all these young creatives sparkling and networking and becoming friends, and I thought, this is exactly why I started this,” she said.