There is something sacred about the ritual of getting dressed for the night—a transformation, an invocation, a declaration of intent. In her Fall/Winter ’25 debut, Tyler McGillivary captured this alchemy with Date Night, a collection that distilled the thrill of nocturnal glamour into 30 looks, each a love letter to artifice, desire, and the reckless optimism of a city that never stops moving.
McGillivary has long occupied a space where fashion flirts with fantasy, but this collection sharpened the designer’s vision into something more tactile, more specific. Martini’s abounded as Manhattan’s fashion crowd gathered, giddied in anticipation. Kitty Lever opened the show donning a taxi-yellow faux leather jacket and matching mini skirt, coyly checking the time and grabbing a compact out of her purse to check her lipstick, the moment was a sartorial flash of urgency, evoking the pulse of New York’s streets and the giddy anticipation of the evening ahead. It was a perfect distillation of Date Night’s ethos: fashion as performance, glamour as instinct, and the city as both stage and spectator.
From there, the narrative unravelled in layers of hyper-saturated colour, crystalline embellishments, and textural excess—liquid-like silks draped like the afterglow of a Martini, appliquéd lipstick kisses marking fabric like the aftermath of a whispered confession.
The silhouettes played with nostalgia, but always through McGillivary’s irreverent, off-kilter lens. Structured blazers and flirty hemlines felt like a power play, a reclamation of femininity as both armour and indulgence. A taxi-print mini skirt, lip-shaped buttons, and silk bouquet bags transformed cliché into camp, nostalgia into statement. In McGillivary’s world, glamour is a game—one that’s best played with intention, instinct, and a touch of irony.
And then, the finale: a sculptural black velvet gown dripping in faux diamonds, a wink to old Hollywood excess and the enduring New York ethos of fake it ‘til you make it, ending with the model being hoisted by two gentleman in suits as if she were a starlet in a grand cinematic climax, suspended in a moment of opulence and artifice, her gloved hand blowing a final kiss to the audience.
It was artifice as aspiration, but also as armour—the understanding that glamour has never been about wealth, but about the audacity to declare oneself worthy of spectacle.
Yet, beneath the high-shine finish, Date Night posed a larger question about self-mythology in the digital age. The modern night out exists in a tension between experience and documentation, between dressing for the moment and dressing for the image of it. McGillivary seems to understand this innately: hers is a vision of fashion that is both deeply embodied and utterly performative. A reminder that getting dressed is an act of creation, that nightlife is nothing without the characters who give it meaning.
With Date Night, McGillivary didn’t just stage a runway show—she set the scene. And in the grand tradition of New York’s most electrifying nights, it was one worth dressing up for.
Cody Rooney is the Editor in Chief and senior contributor at liminul.
He is a PhD candidate, digital content specialist, writer, editor, multi-media artist, and photographer.