There is a new power player in the fashion business, and it chose a room the Vanderbilts helped build for its entrance.
Consuelo Vanderbilt Costin and Michaela Seewald unveiled Vanderbilt & Seewald Global Studio — V&S Global Studio — with a New York Fashion Week debut inside Grand Central Terminal’s Vanderbilt Hall, before a packed audience. The production was polished, but the real headline was the business model: investment, strategic guidance, media, technology and direct-to-consumer commerce, assembled into a single platform for international designers trying to crack the American market.
The offer is deliberately different from the industry’s usual bargain. The studio helps designers build a United States and global presence while keeping their ownership, their creative control and their brand identity. For decades, global scale in fashion has usually meant selling a controlling stake — to a conglomerate, a fund, or a bigger brand. V&S is betting that designers will choose a partner that writes checks without demanding the keys.
Costin brings both lineage and an operating record. She is the founder and chief executive of House of Vanderbilt and a co-founder of SohoMuse, the creative-industry network. Seewald is the founder and chief executive of V24 Media. Between them, the pair cover fashion heritage, media distribution and a clear-eyed read on how commerce works now: livestreamed, shoppable and immediate.
The debut doubled as a proof of concept. Three designers showed: Lorena Saravia, whose collections fuse Mexican craftsmanship with modern luxury; Dustin Glickman of DSTN, the Stockholm label built around a “dark cowboy” aesthetic; and Nabil Hayari of Hayari Paris, bringing Paris couture to a New York stage. Each is the kind of international label the studio intends to back — a strong identity at home, and an American audience still to win.
History shared the staging. The Vanderbilt family helped shape Grand Central Terminal more than a century ago, and AEXA Technology supplied holograms of four of its most storied figures — Cornelius Vanderbilt, Alva Vanderbilt, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan — presiding over the runway. Costin, in effect, brought the family name back to the building it helped create.
Emcee Mario Lopez kept the evening moving, and the show pulled off something New York Fashion Week rarely manages: it started on time. A joint US Army and US Navy color guard opened the proceedings — a fitting touch with the United States approaching its 250th anniversary — followed by a musical performance from Leslie Ann Lopez.
Under the spectacle sat the commercial machinery the venture is betting on: livestream e-commerce and Click-to-Buy technology, letting viewers anywhere purchase looks the moment they appear on the runway. For anyone tracking fashion’s steady migration toward direct-to-consumer, it was a live demonstration rather than a pitch deck.
More on the venture and the designers it is backing is available at vsglobalstudio.com.
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