DC Has a New Very Exclusive Club for Designer Fashion Fans

Personal browsing now would seem ultra-exceptional. But the barrage of Instagram posts from the latest party for Couture Circle—a new invite-only team for fashion-loving minds—reads straight out of the Sweet Household Alabama proposal scene. 

Not pursuing? A brief refresh circa 2002: in the rom-com, Patrick Dempsey (a.k.a. McDreamy) whisks Reese Witherspoon to Tiffany’s right after-hours, where a dozen employees stand by as he pops the problem. And then, gesturing close to to all of the engagement rings, he invites her to “pick a single.” 

Couture Circle’s personal function at Tiffany & Co. at CityCenterDC on Sunday, July 10 seemed a minor like that–minus the engagement ring (as considerably as we know). Aptly dubbed “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” the intimate accumulating invited users to sip Champagne as they perused jewellery each new and vintage. Guests photographed on their own donning jewelry from a non-public collection—reportedly worn by these kinds of celebs as Jennifer Lopez—before leaving with Tiffany-branded goodie baggage. 

But the event itself, whilst particular, was not new for the distinctive group. Prior to Breakfast at Tiffany’s, there was a private purchasing working experience at the Sophie Blake boutique in Fairfax. And prior to that, the group’s initially official occasion in May well: a welcome reception of light-weight bites and bubbles at The Ritz in Tysons Galleria, adopted by a private procuring working experience and dessert at Gucci, where members ended up gifted custom made-engraved bottles of Gucci’s Bloom fragrance.

Other benefits from the group’s youthful existence: special obtain to the Louis Vuitton X Nike Air Force 1 show by Virgil Abloh in New York. On the horizon: “a pampering session” for users with the Virginia Institute, a skincare boutique and centre for facial plastic operation and aesthetics.

But it is not all designer searching, Couture Circle’s govt director Baille Benemelis, will have you know. Benemelis is well related in the fashion and art planet as the regional director of the Fashion Team Worldwide of Larger Washington, DC and a profession marketing and advertising qualified. The club notion, she says, actually began again in 2018 as a fundraiser for the Rodarte exhibit at the National Museum of Females in the Arts (NMWA), for which Couture Circle, now a nonprofit team, serves as “a happy benefactor.”

Couture Circle contains 19 associates, and counting—although membership will be capped at 25 to start out. In the combine are stylists, fashion bloggers (DC Fashion Idiot Barnette Holston, for a person) marketing and PR professionals, an inside designer, a skin doctor (Dr. Tina Alster), a photographer, a jewelry designer (ahem, Sophie Blake), a retired U.S. Navy Captain, Mrs. DC The us 2021 (Anchyi Wei), a VP of federal authorities relations, and far more. What do they have in common? An affinity, states Benemelis, for fashion and artwork.

Paid once-a-year membership dues are only disclosed to “prospects,” in accordance to Benemelis, with 10 percent of the elusive charge going to the NWMA. In return, Couture Circle members are promised obtain to a wide variety of exclusive occasions, as effectively as other luncheons and receptions hosted by luxurious makes, private museum tours, sneak-peeks at new designer collections, and designer fulfill-and-greets—plus discount rates and features on solutions and expert services from community organizations, and a lot more. 

Interested folks can join the waitlist at the Couture Circle website, but to achieve access, you have bought to have an in—members will have to be referred by present users. In any other case, you can continue to keep seeing the rom-com variations with the relaxation of us. 

Editor, Washingtonian Weddings

Amy leads Washingtonian Weddings and writes Type Setters for Washingtonian. Prior to becoming a member of Washingtonian in March 2016, she was the editor of Capitol File journal in DC and prior to that, editor of What’s Up? Weddings in Annapolis.