Charli XCX says brat summer is over, but that’s not stopping Collina Strada. At the designer’s spring/summer 2025 show, “Touch Grass,” lime green took center stage. Among the models? Elizabeth Sweetheart, better known as the Green Lady of Brooklyn, who wears only green and is something of a Carroll Gardens micro-celebrity.
An 83-year-old, under-five-feet-tall model with bright green hair might seem out of place at a fashion show, but not at Collina Strada. The label is known for pushing boundaries in the realm of beauty—most memorably, in their fall/winter 2023 show, models wore prosthetics that transformed them into animals.
Elizabeth Sweetheart at Collina Strada.
This year, makeup was kept minimal, and hair got the limelight. Models sported floor-length tresses with a shock of bright green at the tips. Bumble and Bumble stylist Charlie Le Mindu says he was inspired by the show’s venue—a hidden cemetery in the East Village.
“I wanted [the hair to] have weights on the bottom, so [that] the movement is really heavy and not too flowy,” Le Mindu said, noting that the heft of the cemetery helped him make this decision. He sourced the hair extensions from France (“That’s my secret,” he said, when asked where) and worked closely with Collina Strada’s creative director Hillary Taymour on the green tips. “To do the green color, [Taymour] wanted a really special green that was inspired by the grass boards for the collection,” Le Mindu said. “We had to mix so many greens.” The end result blended in perfectly with the grass at the venue. If that wasn’t enough, many of the models also sported grass-stained knees.
“Grass-stained fairy!” one of the models squealed as she flipped her hair and twirled in a circle. Leave it to Collina Strada to find levity at a cemetery.
Katie Berohn is the Beauty Assistant at Good Housekeeping, Woman’s Day and Prevention magazines, all part of the Hearst Lifestyle Group. She graduated from the University of Colorado, Boulder, with a major in journalism and minor in technology, arts, and media, and earned her Master’s Degree at NYU’s Graduate Program of Magazine Journalism. In addition, Katie has held editorial internships at Denver Life Magazine, Yoga Journal, and Cosmopolitan, a digital editorial internship at New York Magazine’s The Cut, a social good fellowship at Mashable, and has freelanced for HelloGiggles. _When she’s not obsessing over the latest skincare launch or continuing her endless search for the perfect shade of red nail polish, Katie can be found in a hot yoga class, trying everything on the menu at New York’s newest restaurant, or hanging out at a trendy wine bar with her friends.