On February 8, Macy’s welcomed one of our Designers-in-Residence to dress a celebrity model in its annual Red Dress Collection fashion show!
Each year, Macy’s invites celebrity models and women’s health advocates to walk the runway in red dresses created by both established and emerging designers. The show supports the American Heart Association and Go Red for Women.
Macy’s chose daughter-mother business duo Najla and Cynthia Burt, the minds behind fashion brand Dur Doux, to show their work alongside a select group of emerging designers. A Designer-in-Residence business in the inaugural DC Fashion Incubator at Macy’s cohort, Dur Doux is an upscale fashion brand that translates into Hard/Soft. The brand’s signature style is defined by avante garde shapes, exquisite details, and unusual fabrication. In an interview before the show, the duo explained that daughter Najla’s edgy style and mother Cynthia’s French chic have sown a productive “turmoil in the way we design.”
Mother Cynthia and daughter Najla Burt posted a photo to Dur Doux’s Instragram, posing at the Red Dress Collection fashion show. See our past blog posts to read about the brand’s initial selection by Macy’s and see an exclusive pre-show interview.
Macy’s paired Dur Doux with movie and TV star Elisabeth Röhm. Her recent TV roles have included Law & Order, Stalker, and NCIS, and she appeared in Netflix’s Flaked. She also recently acted in the films American Hustle, Joy, and Once Upon a Time in Venice. Röhm helped Dur Doux to settle on their final design: a gown with voluminous folds and dynamically-patterned fabrication, a classic example of the brand’s style.
The initial illustration of the design that Röhm selected for the fashion show.
On the night of the event, Röhm as well as Najla and Cynthia Burt walked in front of the press and other guests. And finally, during the spirited runway presentation, Röhm strutted with confidence and verve in Dur Doux’s design.
Röhm walking the runway in Dur Doux’s design.
“I had a few tears,” Najla said to DC Fashion Foundation leadership following the show. “So proud and thankful for you and what the [DC Fashion] Foundation has done and can do. We are so grateful.”
The DC Fashion Foundation congratulates Dur Doux! Want to see the brand locally? Now is your chance — Head to DC Fashion Week on February 24 at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, VA!