EXCLUSIVE: Cult Gaia Units L.A. Style Present for Nov. 2, to Open Miami Retailer in December

Cult Gaia is heading to the runway.

Designer Jasmin Larian Hekmat plans to stage a trend present in her hometown of Los Angeles on Nov. 2. The model will current its 2024 resort assortment.

“Doing it in Los Angeles for me is a no brainer,” Hekmat informed WWD. “That is the homeland of Cult Gaia. I ideated the model in New York, nevertheless it actually got here to life right here. Having the ability to interact our neighborhood and household and be really underneath the solar is a lot of who we’re and what we stand for. The items belong on a runway.”

It’ll be a see now, purchase now idea, with customers in a position to buy items after the present.

“It’s superb to have the ability to supply what we present to the client to buy instantly,” she stated.

The placement of the present has but to be revealed. “It is going to be one thing that’s epic, very Cult Gaia. And one thing, I suppose, solely we are able to do.”

Hekmat started making goddess-inspired flower crowns for buddies whereas a pupil on the Style Institute of Expertise in New York. They took off — as did Cult Gaia’s signature “Ark” bag, shortly after the label launched in 2012, fueled by social media. The model has since grown, launching different “It” luggage alongside the best way, together with the rhinestone “Hera” purse, and signature clothes (present bestsellers are the $398 “Akaia” and $658 “Floreana” designs).

The final time Hekmat offered a runway present was in Malibu in 2018, her first.

“It simply by no means felt proper to me to simply do a present,” she defined. “However these items actually should be walked down a runway. And I’m so excited to convey our folks that we love collectively to witness that. Additionally, nothing else captures all 5 senses like a present.”

In January, Hekmat unveiled her first retailer, a flagship on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood, Calif. Subsequent, she’s opening in Miami in December. Whereas she had a yearlong pop-up within the metropolis’s Design District in Could 2022, this one is everlasting. (She’s eyeing London, Dallas and Las Vegas as future locations.)

“It’s so extraordinary,” she stated, including that the facade includes a hand-painted mural that displays her “coronary heart” and “historical past.”

Hekmat has been recognized to rejoice her Iranian American heritage, throwing a Persian Nights feast for the model’s tenth anniversary, and bringing private parts in retailer.

“I can actually put our storytelling into our shops and eventually see how our buyer interacts with our items, which is a recreation changer,” she stated of retail. “Earlier than it was principally on-line and Instagram. Now, we get to create these magical areas and home stunning merchandise, so I see our merchandising otherwise. It created a body for the paintings. It’s a punctuation level for the work that we do. So now after we’re engaged on one thing, it’s like, ‘Is it worthy of this area?’”