LoveShackFancy’s Latest Collection, Staged in Paris, Is Fun Yet Sensual and Tied Up With Bows

If you follow Rebecca Hessel Cohen on Instagram, then you know that she’s audacious, an aficionado of pink, bows and florals, whose message is that it’s OK to dress like a fairytale — and it’s OK to let your inner 5-year-old out. From the airport she arrived at the Ritz Paris hotel, her usual stronghold when she’s in the city, to show off her brand LoveShackFancy’s newest collection, Autumn Winter 2024.

The collection was first unveiled during New York Fashion Week a couple of weeks ago, but in true Cohen style as she does every season, she also brings the collection over to Paris, restaging it to show to European buyers, media and clientele.

The 42-year-old mom of two, who runs the ultra-feminine-centric brand with her husband Todd Cohen, had just come off a whirlwind past few weeks, what with a new collection launch, celebrating a birthday and winning an award with Sephora the night before her Paris showing. Having just flown in from JFK to Charles de Gaulle Airport the day before, Cohen was bright-eyed and ready to take on Parisian Fashion Week.

This new season, titled “Bowquette Burlesque,” is all about bows — bows for the hair and bows printed on silhouettes. But bows are nothing new to LoveShackFancy. “We’ve been bowing before bowing was a thing,” Cohen said, jokingly.

LoveShackFancy isn’t for everyone, but season to season — beyond the bows, pinks and princess looks — there’s also a meticulous passion and a commitment to fashion history. And the brand continues to grow, upping the numbers of stores in its roster and expanding to beauty with its quite radiant fragrances, plus limited-edition collaborations with brands like GAP and Bogner that are selling out.

The brand has caught the eye of many celebrities from Jennifer Lopez and Jessica Alba to Angelina Jolie, Kate Hudson, Bella Thorne, the Hilton sisters and many others. And Cohen and her team have created a slew of looks this season that are sure to catch the eye of Hollywood women and non-Hollywood women.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this new collection is that it is divided into three sections: August, September and October, suggesting to customers what is good for a certain month. “We’re really trying to cater to what girls and women want to wear at the exact time, in these exact respective months,” says Cohen. “We push most of our coats and outerwear and come into our resort and holiday wear in November and December, because we’ve found with our own stores — we have 17 stores — and through our own e-commerce that’s what performs best for us.”

A real connoisseur for textiles and textile history, Cohen began to explain the history behind certain fabrics for some of the pieces in the collection. Every collection is started by sourcing textiles at Les Puces Paris Flea Market. “I went heavily into vintage lingerie this season. We have these beautiful bustiers and corsets. There’s this transparency and exploration of layering with embellishments,” she said. “So, we have these really gorgeous 1920s and 30s pieces of this Chanel inspired jacket.

Cohen further explained the name of the brand and the types of customers it refers to: “The ‘Fancy’ in LoveShackFancy are our fancy girls that travel to New York, London and Paris. The ‘Shack’ girls are the ones that love to go to the beach and wear warm weather clothes, and the ‘Love’ part of the collection is what you’re throwing on everyday no matter where you are,” she says.

For the evening wear maxi dresses, Cohen has diversified, creating cuts for all female shapes. “We really explored women’s body silhouettes and what flows beautifully from curvier women to thinner women,” she says. Many of the looks in the collection are almost couture-esque, incorporating feathers (something new for the brand) as well as new techniques of beading and corsetry and crystals in the evening wear.

All those bows are seen in bow-woven featherweight knits layered under demure corseting and bow appliqué tops worn over satin cowl neck slips to an ice-blue bow jacquard silk halter dress with bow rosette and an evening wear fishtail mesh dress with all over crystal bows. There are also bows that are available for the hair, a recent trend that has taken off with women like Sydney Sweeney, Hailey Bieber and Zoë Kravitz. “We have bows everywhere, even in our stores from the hardware on the racks, on the hooks, on everything which comes from this French sensibility where there are bows on their molding and everywhere,” says Cohen.

The collection is bold, feminine and flirtatious, with something for every occasion. Totally inspired by Parisian glam in the 1920s, Cohen and her savoir-faire sensibilities have created sensual fashion in a tasteful and playful way, draped in bows.