Fashion luminary Zac Posen is showing his new line this evening at New York’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week.

The son of a corporate lawyer and artist in Manhattan, Posen always knew he wanted to design fashion. As a child he would take yarmulkes from his grandparents’ synagogue and make dresses for dolls with them. When he was a sophomore in high school he interned with Nicole Miller and then worked under the guidance of a curator at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art for three years. And all of this was before he was accepted to study at the Central Saint Martins College in London, famously known for training many of fashion’s big wigs. Posen founded his own company in 2001, just as he was celebrating his 21st birthday. His first show, in 2002, was located in a former synagogue on the Lower East Side. But since its beginning Posen’s company has been fraught with financial problems, it saw too much growth, too quickly, and it received mixed reviews from the fashion industry.

Posen is known for making tiny little cocktail dresses and mermaid-shaped dresses that hug the waist and then flow at the bottom. “Mr. Posen’s signature collections have evolved from vampish, old-Hollywood-style bias-cut silk dresses and flirty butterfly chiffons into intricately themed gowns that take their inspiration from something simple in nature —seashells, raffia or tumbleweed, for example,” according to a mini bio in the New York Times.

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So what to expect from Posen at today’s show? Something glamorous, mysterious and fun, and hopefully very, very surprising.

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