Ganni and Paloma Elsesser Shut Down Omen Azen to Celebrate Their Upcoming Collaboration

Omen Azen shut its doors to the public on Wednesday night—a rare thing—to celebrate Ganni and Paloma Elsesser’s upcoming collaboration and, coincidentally, the supermodel’s birthday. Ganni’s creative director, Ditte Reffstrup, crossed the pond for the occasion and hosted friends of Elsesser, including fellow models Emily Ratajkowski, Jill Kortleve, Richie Shazam, and Colin Jones.

The upcoming collaboration, launching April 17, features seven pieces– all size inclusive–first debuted by Elsesser opening the SS24 show in Copenhagen last August.

“The main inspiration of the collectsion were the ways that we get to be different people, different women, multiple times a day,” Elsesser told Vogue. “Sometimes you need to go to the office, go to a party, meet people, need to go to a meeting and I wanted every part of the collectsion to be something that you could interpret on your own. It was really just about being a person living life, also about the maturation of me as a Ganni Girl into a Ganni Woman.”

Both Reffstrup and Elsesser donned the same blue polka dot dress–with a hood– made of an ultra-flattering mesh fabric. However, they styled it entirely differently, with Reffstrup going for a chic, laid-back look in pants and a white tank underneath and Elsesser opting for a sexier evening ensemble.

“I remember Paloma first started to talk about style for the dress, and we were a little bit like ‘oh…it's very sexy. Maybe we should just take it up a little bit.’ And she was like ‘no, no, no, I insist.’” (Gesturing to her chest). “Today, I feel like she put her fingerprint on it, and it has become a much better product. I love it. I love the way people are wearing it. We are in the same dress, and it's a totally different vibe.”

“The collaboration came about very naturally,” Elsesser told me. “I walked the Ganni show in 2020, and when we were in line up to close the show, I had a horrible stomach flu.”

“She was being so professional,” said Reffstrup of the 2020 show. “We had a party the day before and it was one of those parties. We also had dinner at our house, and I think we were around 25-30 people. It ended up with us dancing on the tables, and we were not supposed to do that. But it was just one of those parties. And then Paloma got food poisoning. So she was in makeup and she was starting to feel a little bit bad. I was like, we can't force her to do the show. I mean, she was really sick. And I said to her, ‘just forget it,’ and she was like, ‘no, no, I'm gonna do my work. I'm gonna finish my work like that.’”

“And I threw up everywhere and still walked the show, still did my thing,” said Elsesser.

“You could just feel like when she was entering the floor, people were starting to scream,” remembered Reffstrup. “And it was so it was one of the first times at the shows we did a little bit more size inclusivity. It felt like it was so right. I was so embarrassed about not doing it before. She was the star of the show, even though she was sick and everything. I was so impressed with her. I was like, wow, this is something extra.”

Leave it to Paloma Elsesser to leave a good impression after being visibly sick on the job. “After seeing how there was humor to it, I realized that the team is amazing. Also it’s exciting because obviously there are extended sizes available but they’ve already been doing that so it felt like an authentic and organic partnership. I love the whole Ganni team both on a professional front but also on a human front.”

Friends of Paloma’s—and the brand’s—in attendance included Kim Nguyen, Thakoon Panichgul, Beverly Nguyen, Fara Homidi, Sage Elsesser, Max Ortega, Blue Lindeberg, Chloe Vero, Lovisa Lager, and photographers Brianna Capozzi, Gray Sorrenti, Tyrell Hampton, and Zora Sicher.