Mirror Palais Draws Inspiration from 'Sailor Moon' and Audrey Hepburn for Spring 2024

Photos&colon; Courtesy of Mirror Palais

One year after making his New York Fashion Week debut, Marcelo Gaia, the designer behind the always-viral and exceptionally dreamy ready-to-wear brand Mirror Palais, had a specific goal in mind this season: to make fantasy wearable.

Elements of real-life and fictional cultural icons informed much of the collection, which features multiple bandage dresses, inspired by the ribbons that wrap around anime character Sailor Moon during her transformation sequence. “She’s covered in ribbons and so I wanted a dress like that,” Gaia tells Fashionista. “Once I started working with elastic ribbon as a medium, I was able to create more and more shapes — and so (the ideas) just exploded from there.”

Exaggerated feminine silhouettes are nothing new for Mirror Palais. Brand signatures like low-waist maxi skirts, scalloped tube tops and plenty of bows feature throughout the collection. The standout technique on the runway, however, is one that Gaia hopes will help make the brand’s clothing accessible for a more diverse range of bodies.

“Even the fabrics that we used, just using more stretch than we had in the past and adding adjustable lacing in the back… those are just details that really help make a garment more versatile for more different body types,” says Gaia. “With the corset lace-up gown in particular, you can adjust it so the bust fits to you. The mushroom pleating — it just shapes your body. The elastic bands, it’s all about forming to what your body is and embracing the shape.” It is unclear whether the brand has plans to expand beyond its current size range, which extends only to XXL.

The designer says she also drew inspiration from Audrey Hepburn’s starring role in “Sabrina” as well as her mother, with these influences most present in the collection’s satin-wrapped, wide-brimmed hats and structural, crisp, A-line sundresses.

Draped corsets styled with pendant chokers reminiscent of Vivienne Westwood followed, as well as plenty of the tiered, ruffled mesh gowns with which the brand has become synonymous.

“I actually designed some of the dresses that I showed today when I was visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I love history. I love studying the 18th and early 19th century,” says Gaia. “In my work, I really love to pay homage to those eras. I just think that there was such a different way of thinking when it came to constructing garments for people. There was more thought and care, and that’s what I aspire to do here.”

See the full Mirror Palais Spring 2024 collection, ahead.