GRACE CHEN Closes Abstract Glamour in Sag Harbor and Introduces STYLE LAB

The House's First Hamptons Couture Presentation, Held in Tribute to Rachel Crespin

The Harmony Trilogy · Chapter I — Pre-Fall 2026 Couture Collection

《和解》三部曲 · 第一篇章《和光同尘》

SAG HARBOR, N.Y., July 27, 2026 — GRACE CHEN presented Abstract Glamour, the opening chapter of The Harmony Trilogy and the house's Pre-Fall 2026 Couture Collection, on the evening of Friday, July 24, at a private estate on Noyac Path in Sag Harbor, New York. Forty couture looks were shown to an audience of editors, stylists, collectors, and clients, followed by a garden cocktail reception. It was the first couture presentation the house has staged in the Hamptons.

The evening also marked the introduction of STYLE LAB, a new practice from the house devoted to the study of proportion and personal style — the first extension of GRACE CHEN beyond the atelier in seventeen years.

The collection was presented in tribute to Rachel Crespin, the American fashion editor and consultant who died in April 2026 at the age of 100, with pieces from her jewelry legacy worn alongside the couture.

Founded in Shanghai in 2009 and now working between Shanghai and New York, GRACE CHEN opens with this collection a three-chapter enquiry by founder and creative director Grace Chen into what it means to find harmony in a complex world.

The Collection

Abstract Glamour takes its premise from the two histories that share this stretch of coastline: the Art Deco order of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jazz Age, and the fearless abstraction of Jackson Pollock, who made his most radical work a short drive from the estate. One pursues proportion; the other embraces chance. The collection asks neither to defeat the other.

Across forty looks in silk, linen, light wool and organza, architectural restraint and a drop-waist, unhurried line met poured pigment, hand-dyeing, resin texture and transparent layering. Beading and dimensional embroidery were worked flat into the surface rather than applied to it. The palette moved from black, champagne, ivory and gold through ink and abstraction into what the house calls its Harmony palette.

The clothes were cut to be lived in. Little was fastened tightly; nothing was engineered to hold the body in place. It is a proposition the house describes as luxury that is worn rather than performed — couture for the estate lunch, the private gathering and the gallery, as much as for the gala.

On the Title

The Chinese title, 和光同尘, comes from the fourth chapter of the Tao Te Ching. It describes a light that does not blind, a strength that does not press, a presence that neither hides nor announces itself. In the house's reading, it is the highest expression of Eastern elegance: to be fully oneself, and fully at peace with the world.

A Tribute to Rachel Crespin

Across six decades at Harper's Bazaar, Glamour, Vogue and Esquire, and later as a consultant to houses including Cerruti, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan and Ralph Lauren, Rachel Crespin helped shape the modern American idea of taste. In 1965 she co-created a jewelry line inspired by the forms of Asia and conceived to be worn with modern clothes — a belief, decades ahead of its time, that beauty is enriched by the meeting of cultures.

Presenting her pieces alongside the couture brought an Eastern maison and a great American editor's eye into quiet dialogue. It is the same conviction that runs through the house's own work: that the finest elegance is borderless, and that true harmony is found not in sameness, but in the grace with which difference is held together.

Introducing STYLE LAB

Alongside the collection, the house introduced STYLE LAB — a practice concerned with the question that precedes the dress: why a style that works beautifully on someone else does not work on her.

Its premise is that most women are not short of clothes. They are short of a method. A luxury house typically asks a woman to enter its signature; a trend asks her to follow it. STYLE LAB begins instead with her own proportions, her life stage, and the rooms she actually walks into, and builds a personal style system outward from there.

The practice draws on the atelier's private client work — years of individual fittings in Shanghai and New York — and sets it down as something that can be studied and applied rather than intuited: frameworks covering proportion and cut, presence, life stage, and aesthetic character, resulting in a written personal style report.

It is addressed to women between thirty and fifty-five who have arrived somewhere — founders, executives, mothers at a child's wedding, women in transition — and who are looking for a durable way of dressing rather than another purchase.

“STYLE LAB is where a woman comes to understand herself. GRACE CHEN is where that understanding is made.” — Grace Chen

From the Designer

“For years we believed the answer to a complicated world was to escape it. I no longer think that is true. The problem was never that the world is complex — it is that we have been fighting it. This collection is about stopping the fight.” — Grace Chen, Founder and Creative Director

The Evening

What Follows

Abstract Glamour is the first of three chapters. The second will be presented later this year, with date and location to be announced. Pieces from the Pre-Fall 2026 Couture Collection are available by private appointment in New York and Shanghai.

Press Assets and Accreditation

Runway imagery, detail photography, backstage material and the collection film are available to accredited press:

– Full runway and detail image library — available on request, no embargo

– Collection film and behind-the-scenes footage — available on request

– Show notes, look-by-look credits and designer biography — available on request

– STYLE LAB briefing materials and methodology background — available on request

– Interviews with Grace Chen — available in English and Mandarin, in person in New York or by video

– Private atelier and collection viewings for editors and stylists — by appointment

To receive assets, request an interview, or be added to the GRACE CHEN international press list for The Harmony Trilogy, STYLE LAB and future collections, please write to communications@gracechen.com.

About GRACE CHEN

GRACE CHEN is a leading Chinese couture house rooted in both Shanghai and New York, celebrated for its sophisticated fusion of Eastern and Western aesthetics. Founded in 2009 by designer Grace Chen, the house speaks to the modern elite's pursuit of self-expression and refined taste. Through garments defined by rigorous proportional harmony, GRACE CHEN empowers individuals to inhabit a sense of presence and authorship in both life and career.

Media Contact

Yuqun Xing

Communications, House of Grace Chen

communications@gracechen.com

www.gracechen.com

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