Cucculelli Shaheen presented Collection Twenty-One: Flaming Hearts at New York Fashion Week, a collection shaped by the brand’s ongoing dialogue with craft, music, and narrative design. The Picnic House on Pier 40 set the stage, with New York band The Thing performing live and driving the show with their raw sound. Embroidery, hand-worked textures, and sculptural tailoring defined the collection. In our exclusive interview, Anthony Cucculelli and Anna Shaheen broke down the inspirations that fed into the collection, from Renaissance paintings and Victorian portraits to Led Zeppelin and late-night concerts.
The show drew from allegories and cultural touchpoints including Over the Hills and Far Away, Time and Fame by Veronese, Kashmir (1975), the portrait of Lady Meux, and Fools in the Rain. These references came together in an exploration of romance, longing, and the pursuit of beauty. The designers folded these ideas into their silhouettes, emphasizing contrast while keeping the work grounded in their recognizable aesthetic.
Each look carried layers of detail. Intricate embroideries and embellishments reflected the handcraft at the center of the brand’s practice, while fluid fabrics gave movement to structured shapes. The collection played with balance – strength and fragility, light and shadow, surface and depth – building an atmosphere of transformation. The palette shifted like flashes of light, underscoring moods rather than static color stories.
The staging amplified these choices. Pier 40 offered an expansive view of the Hudson, while The Thing’s live performance turned the runway into a shared rhythm of sound and design. Cucculelli and Shaheen used this setting to underline their vision of romance tied to rebellion, crafting a moment that felt alive and immediate.
To understand how Flaming Hearts came together, our deputy editor Ana Markovic sat down with designer duo Anthony Cucculelli and Anna Shaheen. Below, they take us inside their process and share what drives their work.
What was the inspiration behind Flaming Hearts?
Every season we take the time to give ourselves an inspiration period, and we plan out a ton of trips to see museums, art exhibits, concerts, and travel. This season we went to the Frick on the re-opening day, and loved the rich colors and textures in the artwork, especially the Veronese ‘Virtues’ they have on exhibit. We also made an effort to see as much live music as we could – we saw seven concerts to feed our brains. And then we always visit the used book section at The Strand to see if there is anything unexpected that we come across. We saw an all-female Led Zeppelin cover band in the desert this season that was very interesting. And we took photos of everything and anything that inspired us during this time. Our overarching theme this season was Led Zeppelin at The Frick – so lush, rich textures mixed with downtown energy and sound.
How does Collection 21 connect Led Zeppelin, Renaissance art, and a Victorian socialite?
Part of our process each season is taking all of the disparate things we’ve been inspired by and mixing them together – we love to have an unexpected combination of themes and materials, which is why we loved the idea of presenting out on the pier during sunset with The Thing – a live band that we came across performing in Tompkins Square Park in the city. So, it may be a rich jacquard and classical silhouette, mixed with some rock and roll energy, with the attitude of a rebellious Victorian socialite.
The idea of ‘progress through beauty’ feels especially loaded right now. Do you see beauty as resistance, escapism, or something else entirely?
For us, it’s a kind of combination of resistance and escapism. Resistance in a sense that we’re championing a type of artisanal work in the hand-embroidery that a lot of houses are moving away from. So we’re resisting that move in our own way. Escapism, as our community always loves to dream, and sometimes we all need a little breath of air from the heaviness.
Craftsmanship and detail are central to your work. How do these elements support the storytelling in Collection 21?
Details and craft are always the touch-points of our collections. For this collection, we really wanted to push ourselves creatively and on a construction side by trying out new fabrications – a majority of our looks were made with jacquard fabrics, which gave an additional layer of motif to the garments. Then we layered on the details – either complimentary beading, enhancing the motif of the jacquards, or playing around with contrasts to highlight the differences between the embroidery and the base fabric.
How does Collection 21 reflect the evolution of Cucculelli Shaheen’s design approach?
We really wanted to explore new materials this season, going along with our unofficial ‘Led Zeppelin at The Frick’ theme – so lots of rich jacquards and colors, layered with embroideries and motifs for an over the top effect. In recent seasons, we’ve been trying to make each collection even more personal and lean into our loves and interests.
In building the brand since 2016, what guiding principle has remained constant?
We always try to keep a few things in mind. Attention to craftsmanship and detail; keeping true to ourselves; and embracing the downtown energy of NYC.”
How do you negotiate ideas when your visions for a piece or collection differ?
Our kind of unspoken agreement is that we both have to agree on a look for it to be in the collection. If one of us isn’t into a look, it doesn’t go on the boards. Sometimes we don’t agree – and when that happens, one person usually needs to convince the other, or the second person may interpret the idea in a way that makes sense to them, and a new idea comes out of it. These looks or ideas always end up being our favorites!
How do you hope Cucculelli Shaheen is perceived by both industry insiders and the wider audience?
We kind of play by our own rules, a little bit, with the way we design and present our collections, as well as our business strategies. So we hope that people appreciate our unique point of view, even if it may be unexpected!
What’s next for the Cucculelli Shaheen woman?
We’re hoping to keep dressing her for all her life events – expanding the collection offerings, offering new materials and silhouettes. We would also love to get into shoes and accessories – hopefully in the near future!
