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Charli XCX says brat summer is over, but that’s not stopping Collina Strada. At the designer’s spring/summer 2025 show, “Touch Grass,” lime green took center stage. Among the models? Elizabeth Sweetheart, better known as the Green Lady of Brooklyn, who wears only green and is something of a Carroll Gardens micro-celebrity.
An 83-year-old, under-five-feet-tall model with bright green hair might seem out of place at a fashion show, but not at Collina Strada. The label is known for pushing boundaries in the realm of beauty—most memorably, in their fall/winter 2023 show, models wore prosthetics that transformed them into animals.
This year, makeup was kept minimal, and hair got the limelight. Models sported floor-length tresses with a shock of bright green at the tips. Bumble and Bumble stylist Charlie Le Mindu says he was inspired by the show’s venue—a hidden cemetery in the East Village.
“I wanted [the hair to] have weights on the bottom, so [that] the movement is really heavy and not too flowy,” Le Mindu said, noting that the heft of the cemetery helped him make this decision. He sourced the hair extensions from France (“That’s my secret,” he said, when asked where) and worked closely with Collina Strada’s creative director Hillary Taymour on the green tips. “To do the green color, [Taymour] wanted a really special green that was inspired by the grass boards for the collection,” Le Mindu said. “We had to mix so many greens.” The end result blended in perfectly with the grass at the venue. If that wasn’t enough, many of the models also sported grass-stained knees.
“Grass-stained fairy!” one of the models squealed as she flipped her hair and twirled in a circle. Leave it to Collina Strada to find levity at a cemetery.
