How Euphoria’s new favourite brand is meeting the moment.

When designer Christina Liu learned that encountering a spider in Chinese culture signals good luck, she stopped killing them. The superstition allowed for spiders to find solace in various nooks of her home, spinning elaborate webs that glinted in the light. Everyday, Liu would find herself hypnotized by their work. “That’s when I took the idea of [spider-inspired fabric] into the studio,” she remembers. 

Among New York City’s class of rising designers, Liu’s label UNNAMED has defined itself by innovation. Any UNNAMED invention is the product of a Christina Liu fixation — like the now inimitable reflective spider knit, a gossamer-fine fabric which catches the light much like the webs around her home. Initially conceived as a jewelry brand producing patented, retroflective jewelry, the commitment to constant boundary-defying experimentation is woven (pun intended) into the brand’s founding ethos. 

“Every piece since, whether it’s jewelry, a silk velvet skirt, or a reflective spider silk gown, comes from the same place,” Liu explains. “I keep wanting something I can’t find, so I build it. I design with the customer in mind because I am the customer. If I’m looking for a piece that doesn’t exist yet, chances are someone else is too.”

Naturally, her creations have captured the imagination of other creatives. Natasha Newman Thomas, Euphoria’s costume designer, approached the brand early into the conception process for each of the character’s adult sartorial identities (an UNNAMED creation appears on Jules). Blackpink’s Lisa recently wore the Solara set, one of the brand’s core designs, to celebrate her birthday. KATSEYE have requested a range of custom pieces ahead of their stacked slate of summer performances. 

This is all, of course, only the beginning. Ahead of the release of UNNAMED’s SS26 collection ‘Second Skin’ this month, Christina Liu discussed the method behind her (occasional) madness, meeting the moment, and what will always mean more than celebrity placements. 

Walk me through the formulation of reflective spider silk. Why is fabric innovation such a core pillar of the brand?

That one came from a personal obsession. I was fixated on spiders during the development of that collection. There’s a Chinese superstition that killing a spider is bad luck and seeing one is meant to bring you good fortune. So I started letting them live in my house. Over time they started to multiply, and webs began forming everywhere. Under the light at night, the patterns were mesmerizing. I couldn’t stop looking at them. That’s when I took it into the knit studio. I wanted to recreate the feeling of those webs in a reflective knit, so the pieces would catch light the way the webs did. It ended up being the fabric we shot the most, especially in that transition from no flash to flash. The piece reads completely different depending on how it’s lit, which is exactly what I was chasing.

How did you first connect with the Euphoria team? What pieces were Natasha Newman Thomas (costume designer) most interested in, and for which characters?

Natasha reached out before the new season started filming. We hopped on call and she shared some direction on where certain characters were going and pulled all the pieces from our last two collections for wardrobe. I’ll leave the specifics to her and the show, but seeing pieces you spent months building get considered with that kind of intention is the reason we do this. I’m really excited to see how it reads on screen.

How does support like this elevate the brand’s profile? Is there real conversion?

Honestly, the numbers are only part of it. What actually moves us at the studio when a placement like that happens is getting to contribute to an artist’s moment in a small way. That’s what the team celebrates. Of course, visibility builds credibility and yes, there’s real conversion, but the most fulfilling piece is feeling like the work landed somewhere meaningful. That’s what keeps us going.

Do you have a dream placement or event for UNNAMED? The Met Gala is coming up…

The Met would be incredible! But the moments that mean the most to us are seeing someone wearing a piece on the sidewalk, at a coffee shop, somewhere we didn’t plan. We send each other photos all the time in our team group chat. A red carpet moment is a dream — a stranger living in the clothes is the point. 

We’re seeing a rise of bodycon styles right now. As a form-fitting brand, what does UNNAMED ascribe this to? How does the brand align with certain trends?

What’s really happening is a return to the body being the focus. After a decade of oversized, androgynous silhouettes, people want to look like themselves again. UNNAMED has always been body-conscious, so the trend didn’t shape us. We just happen to be built for the moment.

SS26 specifically is designed around the idea of second skin. Pieces that feel like they were made for your body, that you forget you’re wearing, but that make you feel incredibly confident. Every piece has an intention behind it. A party piece is engineered to make you feel powerful. A casual piece is made to feel easy, without sacrificing shape. That’s where the brand sits.

How is SS26 raising the bar? What does it offer that the consumer hasn’t seen from UNNAMED before?

LUNARIS was about atmosphere: mood, mystery, the feeling of being somewhere dark and beautiful. SS26 pulls that mood and points it inward. It’s about the body itself, about material meeting skin. This is also our biggest collection to date, releasing in two drops with the most pieces we’ve ever put in a single season. Our take on second skin runs the full range, from party pieces to casual shapes with real intention behind each silhouette. Where LUNARIS was the environment, SS26 is the body inside it.

Is there a pie-in-the-sky design challenge? Where to from here?

The dream is a flagship store in NY and LA where the clothes live in the environment they were made for (with a little cafe inside!) paired with a full atelier and material development lab behind it.  That’s the direction, whether it takes three years or ten!

Words by Beatrice Hazlehurst