PARIS — Luxury occasion wear label Starlit’s latest bash at the Hôtel de Crillon during Paris Fashion Week, hosted in partnership with WWD, ended on a high note.
It was the brand’s “first very big event with a lot of traction,” said Starlit’s founder and creative director Summer Starlit Prim, who hosted an appointment-only showroom at the Park Hyatt hotel during Paris Fashion Week.
The setting for the party helped, she said with relief: The warm weather, the balcony looking out over Place de la Concorde, and the room filled with the kind of women she wanted in her clothes. Buzzy models Amelia Gray and Carmella Rose dropped by and expressed great interest in the collection.
“Everything went really just perfectly. And everyone was so kind and nice,” Prim said during a sit-down interview with WWD, adding that her team had already seen a substantial uptick online. “We’re already seeing a lot more movement on social media, getting bombarded with comments and DMs.”
For a young label still earning its place in a crowded occasionwear market, the Crillon event was as much a business catalyst as a celebration.
Growing up in California, she originally studied interior design in San Francisco, but quickly realized she was on the wrong track. “Halfway through, I was like, What am I doing? I mean, I do love interior design, but I think fashion was always something that I’ve been so drawn to my entire life,” said Prim.
Five seasons in, Starlit’s foundations are now rooted in her long-standing interest in midcentury design and glamorous women in Hollywood. “Everything is inspired by Old Hollywood glamor. So think Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, and Grace Kelly. I like to use them as my source of inspiration for each season,” Prim said.
Her grandmother, a professional ballerina who lived in New York, is also a key source of inspiration. “She was like the most glamorous woman ever. Each collection that I do is very her. She was almost like a Marilyn Monroe type of woman,” she said.
Her mother, meanwhile, was always obsessed with antiques, which led Prim into vintage, collecting clothes, and studying labels and eras. She cited ’60s Halston as a current obsession, attracted to the designer’s disco-era fluidity and the association with style icons like Cher. She also liked Pierre Cardin’s structured and art-like pieces from that radical time.
Her fall 2026 range, meanwhile, was a study of Palm Beach in the ’60s through the lens of Slim Aarons’ photography. “Palm Beach was at the forefront of the 1960s jet set era. I really wanted to create something that looked like the pieces that they would have been wearing in that era,” Prim explained.
On the rails, that meant sharp-tailored suiting in dark tones, minidresses and gowns with internal corsets, and lighter, more fluid pieces for warmer climates.
The brand’s aesthetic has, until now, been defined by strict black-and-white dressing. The designer saw monochrome as the clearest way to secure a timeless identity. “I wanted to keep it very effortless and wearable for women, where it’s not eating them up, where they can feel they’re the ones shining in the pieces,” she said.
But as feedback came in, she was ready to go big with colors next season, having introduced several pieces in soft pink for fall 2026.
One of Starlit’s most visible signatures is its extensive use of ostrich feathers. They appear on dresses, mini lengths, capelets and trims, and are often central to the garment’s construction. Prim uses them to mimic a drop waist, extend lines, and emphasize certain parts of the body. The full-feather “drop waist feather dress” has become a cornerstone of the brand, she said.
Feathers are also a clear cost driver. “The feather is one of the most expensive parts of the garment. Obviously, the more feathers, the more expensive it’ll be,” she said, adding that a shorter feathered dress might retail between $1,800 and $2,200 and a feather capelet is under $3,000. An evening number with heavy feathery treatment goes north of $5,000. All of the brand’s garments are made in Italy by boutique-sized manufacturers.
The Starlit customer, as Prim sees her, is not looking for safe special-occasion pieces. She is comfortable with attention and dresses to underline that.
“It’s cool, it’s sexy. Within this realm of being this Old Hollywood glamour brand, I don’t want it to be a replica. I want it to have that edge. I want it to have that feeling that a girl can go out partying until 5 a.m. during fashion week and just be feeling her best self,” she said.
Beyond the Paris moment, Starlit’s growth plan is to give this customer more ways to engage with the brand offline. Prim is leaning on trunk shows to drive conversion.
“We did one trunk show in New York in December, and at the end of one night we sold 17 pieces,” she said, adding that the brand is planning more pop-ups, with Palm Beach and New York high on the list.
For her, letting women touch the fabrics and step into the silhouettes is key. “From the photographs to seeing the fabric in person, even trying on the pieces, it really gives a whole other vision to the brand once you’re here in person to see it,” she said.
Another major focus this year is red carpet and celebrity dressing. Her team is actively pursuing opportunities to dress those who align with her vision.
Behind the scenes, Starlit is still a relatively small operation, with about 10 people. Prim remains hands-on, from choosing the fabrics to creating the mood board, while the in-house design team handles drawings and flats.
Looking ahead, Prim plans to move beyond purely eveningwear and develop a stronger ready-to-wear offer. There is also clear potential in bridal and custom couture, especially as demand grows.
Like many emerging designers, she has a longer-term ambition: a runway show of her own. She is cautious about timing but doesn’t want to wait indefinitely.
“Maybe it’s so far-fetched to be next year, but who knows?” she said, while acknowledging that “having a Parisian moment would be really amazing.”
