Cucculelli Shaheen Ignites NYFW with Collection Twenty-One: Flaming Hearts
On September 15, 2025, as the sun dipped over the Hudson River, Cucculelli Shaheen presented Collection Twenty-One: Flaming Hearts at the Picnic House on Pier 40. The show unfolded against a backdrop of live music by New York–based band The Thing, weaving sound and style into a unified performance.
Designers Anna Shaheen and Anthony Cucculelli built their latest collection on a tapestry of allegories and cultural references—Over the Hills and Far Away, Veronese’s Time and Fame, Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir (1975), the portrait of Lady Meux, and Fools in the Rain. These inspirations coalesced into a meditation on romance, longing, and an unrelenting pursuit of beauty.
Photo Credit: Daniel Perry
A Symphony of Craft and Storytelling
True to the brand’s DNA, the collection elevated handcraft to the level of storytelling. Intricate embroideries, sculptural silhouettes, and fluid fabrics embodied constant motion, while textures and tones highlighted the interplay of strength and fragility. Transformational flashes of light and shifting moods echoed across the palette, underscoring the narrative woven into each piece.
The energy of The Thing carried through the runway, infusing the show with raw rock-and-roll momentum. This synergy between music and fashion amplified the designers’ signature downtown edge, blending theatricality with couture-level craftsmanship.
Crafting the Atmosphere
The presentation was supported by a team of creative collaborators. Hair was styled by Oribe, makeup by MAC, and nails by Pattie Yankee with Dazzle Dry. Muzam Productions handled both production and casting, with Chase Tucker also contributing to casting decisions. Together, these elements built an environment that complemented the intensity and romance of the designs.
The Designers Behind the Brand
Founded in 2016, Cucculelli Shaheen is the vision of married duo Anna Rose Shaheen and Anthony Cucculelli. Their shared history—meeting in downtown New York in the mid-aughts and further shaping their creative partnership while designing in Florence—infuses the brand with a balance of classical reference and modern irreverence. Their résumé spans illustrious houses including Emilio Pucci, Oscar de la Renta, Burberry, Calvin Klein, Yigal Azrouël, and Roberto Cavalli, yet their own label has become synonymous with lush detail, mythological and musical references, and a subversive downtown silhouette.
Q&A with Cucculelli Shaheen
Caroline Dalal: Your pieces are known for their incredible detail and craftsmanship. What does that process look like behind the scenes?
Anna Rose Shaheen & Anthony Cucculelli: We always do a ton of research before we start designing the collection. Then, we’ll start to play around with some ideas or motifs that we find interesting, and we’ll work to prep those ideas into a pitch sheet for our embroidery team, with colors and materials that we find interesting that season. Then, the swatching process starts, and sometimes we can do up to ten rounds of swatches while we work on getting the colors and materials balance the way that feels correct for the collection. Simultaneously, we’ll be working on collection silhouettes - either revisiting an existing shape that we find interesting, or starting something new. Then we start to play around with combining embroidery, fabrics, and silhouettes together with lots of sketches and color iterations to see what feels best in the collection that season. Once we’ve finished that part of the design process, we’ll start to place any fabric patterns onto the pattern pieces and embroidery motifs as well as degrades and ombre placements. When the pieces come in, we’ll sometimes customize further in the studio during show fittings to make something unexpected!
CD: You’ve both worked with houses like Pucci, Cavalli, and Oscar de la Renta. How did those experiences shape the way you approach your own label today?
Anna Rose Shaheen & Anthony Cucculelli: Working in Italy, we really learned to appreciate a slower and more thoughtful approach to design. The care and detail that is taken making the garments is a contrast to New York, where sometimes the design process can feel very busy! So we try to take our time when designing the collection, and giving ourselves the space to breathe to make sure we’re heading in the right direction for each collection.
CD: As partners in both life and design, how does that dynamic shape your creative process?
Anna Rose Shaheen & Anthony Cucculelli: We’ve been working together for a long time, but the most important lesson we’ve learned is there is work and then there is life. And we try really hard not to let any difference of opinion when designing cross over! Our 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 design boards. Sometimes we don’t always 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, so we’ve learned to embrace this part of the process!
CD: New York is always your muse. What about the city right now is inspiring you most?
Anna Rose Shaheen & Anthony Cucculelli: We love being able to go out and hear any kind of live music you can imagine - we made an effort this spring and summer during the design process to see as many concerts as possible, mainly in smaller venues to really experience the music. This is how we came across the band for our show - The Thing - as they were playing a live show in Thompkins Square Park and we thought they would be a perfect compliment for the runway show!
CD: Many of your pieces feel timeless. How do you think about creating garments with lasting value in a fast-moving industry?
Anna Rose Shaheen & Anthony Cucculelli: This is incredibly important for us - one of our main areas of focus is the hand-beading and embroidery, as well as timeless materials, that go into each collection. We’re designing pieces that are meant to last more than one season - they aren’t inexpensive to produce or to purchase, so we want to ensure that they have a lasting value. We keep all of our collections open - so someone can come in and order a piece from Collection One and we can still make it for them. So we don’t waste all of that design work for only one season - it lives on, and clients can wear something from any collection and not feel dated. We aim to have our first collections stay as relevant as our recent ones, so we will often play with earlier motifs or silhouettes and update them throughout the seasons.
Carrying the Flame Forward
With Flaming Hearts, Cucculelli Shaheen reaffirmed their reputation for marrying meticulous craftsmanship with evocative narrative. By fusing hand-embellished detail with live music and cultural allegory, the duo created an atmosphere where fashion became performance. Their latest work is both a reflection of the past and a signal of the brand’s enduring place in the future of New York fashion.
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