Tanya Taylor Debuts Eveningwear Brand, Delphine

Introducing Tanya Taylor’s alter ego, Delphine.

The New York-based designer on Wednesday is debuting Delphine, Taylor’s new evening and occasion wear label inspired by an alter ego she created years ago when applying to Parsons School of Design and before launching her namesake label.

“I was in this rough patch of life where I had broken up with my boyfriend, sitting in a dark living room, and I was trying to put together a mood board of my dream muse — why I should go to Parsons and why I should be able to build a brand — thinking of what that life might look like,” Taylor said. “I took Tory Burch’s head and I pasted it on Bianca Jagger’s body, put it in the middle of a board and gave this fictitious character the name Delphine Pratt. To me, she was the coolest French girl you’d ever imagine.”

Taylor said she was manifesting who this girl was, which was who Taylor wanted to become.

“I had never been to New York before, and I really wanted to jump into that with a sense of courage, freedom and spontaneity. I just thought that it was kind of fun to build this person that maybe I didn’t have the confidence to be at 21 years old but I knew I wanted to become,” she said. 

Taylor’s imaginary muse stayed within her orbit. During her time at Parsons, Delphine was the voice in her head giving Taylor permission to stay up late and explore new places. Fast forward to Taylor’s very first runway show after launching her namesake contemporary label in 2012, and she even sent physical runway show invites to the fictitious character, at Taylor’s personal address. 

After 10 years at the helm of the Tanya Taylor brand — getting close to their customer, building a label that she said feels stabilized and tapping Adrianne Kirszner as chief executive officer, Taylor said it was the right year “to take everything I’ve learned about a wide range of customers we designed for, and apply it to a hole in the market that I personally felt was missing.” 

After designing pieces for herself to wear to parties and black-tie events when unable to find options that didn’t have big ruffles, cutouts or high price-tags, Taylor saw this gap for unfussy, fun and darkly glamorous evening, party and special occasion wear.

The idea was also sparked after Taylor’s 10-year anniversary party last year, held at The Carlyle, where she placed a polka-dot minidress with a big back bow in its window. Taylor said she was fascinated and surprised by customers’ requests for the piece and their willingness to wait four weeks for her team to make it custom for them at a higher price point than her contemporary label. Ditto the style’s broad age range of customers; Taylor noted the frock was sold to both 18-year-olds and an 80-year-old.

“I felt like we needed to create a new world for women that were looking to enjoy eveningwear more than like I felt there was out there. I didn’t want it to be part of our Tanya Taylor brand because I feel like we’re right on what that is right now. We’re approaching the two very differently, very separately,” she said. 

Last March Taylor decided to take a risk and distill these ideas into a second brand, noting that the first collection’s mood boards were influenced by vintage and classic silhouettes. 

“It’s so different when you’re 10 or 11 years into building something to go and start a new career. It’s been a good learning curve, but also really brought a lot of passion out in our team. I think our team has the capability of really being able to be flexible in how we design. We’ve added a different showroom, and having a CEO [at Tanya Taylor] has given me more creative space to be able to build Delphine,” she said of her hands-on approach to the new label

Currently, the Tanya Taylor brand has a team of about 40 people, which allows Taylor to share resources across both brands, including her design director, who Taylor said “definitely leans toward Delphine in her experience.” 

In addition, Delphine is designed, produced and sold on a different calendar (with plans for two collections a year) than the Tanya Taylor brand, which produces four collections annually.

“What’s so nice about eveningwear is it doesn’t have to be on that contemporary cycle, it can really have that seasonless-ness and that classic element to it. So that’s refreshing. My approach to it is probably to let my brain go a little bit wilder, more experimental and pushing the proportions and fabrications more with Delphine. It’s become like my little playground, and a lot of it is definitely looking at a lot of past nostalgic shapes and silhouettes that I feel like we’re just all missing right now in the world,” Taylor said, noting her approach for Delphine is more experimental, “which has its own perks,” compared to the 10 years of data, retail partners and knowledge of bestsellers, fabric lanes and margins that fuel the Tanya Taylor brand.

Aesthetically, Delphine truly is the “alter ego” of Tanya Taylor. 

The first fall 2024 collection, which debuts Wednesday exclusively with Moda Operandi, specialty boutiques nationwide — Hampden in Charleston, S.C.; SOSUSU in New Orleans; Cabana Canary in Dallas, and Valentine’s in Austin — and on the brand’s e-commerce, is rooted in dark glamour and “cool-girl insouciance.” The second Delphine collection for spring 2025, which Taylor said is a bit more romantic aesthetically, will also launch with Kirna Zabête.

“I feel like my job as a creative is to solve women’s problems, make them feel beautiful and give them great options. In contemporary times, that’s how your brain gets trained — making sure I’m solving problems. When I looked at eveningwear, it felt serious, it felt heavy. I just felt like I looked older and I looked heavy. So I really focused on weightlessness and lightness. Still having interior boning and having the construction that makes it flattering and elevated, but really making sure someone can feel comfortable in it. I think there’s just been time that we’ve had fitting and knowing how an American woman wears anything that helps us approach this category with a lot of foundational realness of how to build something that looks gorgeous but inside is actually quite easy,” Taylor said of the Delphine brand.

“What’s fun is, she’s a little mischievous this season, she’s definitely indulgent. She’s more nocturnal, and then when we switch into spring, she’s a little more romantic. She’s got an old-school kind of romance to her. It’s fun to take her through these little journeys and really build strong stories about like that character and where they are each season,” she said.

Fall’s key fabrications include lustre satin, drapey faille and stretch crepe across an array of 19 mini, midi and maxidresses priced $895 to $2,195. From a pattern and color perspective, Taylor said fall is big on polka dots, offers hints of holiday-friendly fare with black and cream dresses, but isn’t shy of color with pops of fuchsia, chartreuse and festive jewel tones. 

“I think you could be both in one day. You could be one by day, and one by night. I think people have that in their personalities,” Taylor said. “It’s nice that I think every woman wants to be able to flex who they are in different ways creatively, so it gives more space for that.”

Outside of a December brand launch party held at Taylor’s uptown Madison Avenue store, going forward she will continue to design and present both lines independently from one another. The Tanya Taylor brand will continue to show on the New York Fashion Week calendar whereas Delphine’s world includes surprise events, like a bingo night or martini-filled parties.

“I don’t think this is a fashion week kind of brand. I like that she doesn’t even really know when fashion week is. She’s making her thing happen when she feels that she wants to celebrate. That’s what’s refreshing,” Taylor said. “After seeing the industry go up and down fashion weeks and how rigid some brands have felt they have to be, what’s so nice about starting something now is feeling that freedom of how you might connect to a customer and how you present.”