A beautiful color story.

On dressing for a garden party, trusting your creative instinct, and a full-circle moment with Marie Galvin.

On June 24, I had the pleasure of attending Mayor Wu’s annual Rose Garden Party at Boston City Hall. It was my first time attending, and naturally, I thought very carefully about what I should wear.

Something modest, perhaps.

Nope. That’s a lie.

I had a sequin dress.

A colorful, unapologetically joyful sequin dress from my own collection, lalla bee everyday. And somewhere between looking at it and convincing myself that sequins could, in fact, be considered spring appropriate, I thought: This is springy enough. Why not?

The dress was never the question. The hat was.

I knew exactly who I wanted to work with, even though I had no idea what I wanted.

Enter Marie Galvin.

I first learned about Marie in the fall of 2019, around the time I launched my Lola collection. Lola was different for me. I was experimenting with more vibrant colors and, perhaps more importantly, beginning to trust my creative instincts in a different way. I wasn’t designing based solely on what I thought people expected from me. I was designing from my gut.

For the StyleWeek New England show, I enlisted the help of my dear friend Stephanie Muñoz of MPOZE to take over the styling. I wanted each look paired with a hat—something that would give the collection a little old Hollywood glamour.

Steph made the connection with Marie and somehow convinced her to loan us more than ten hats. More than ten.

Marie didn’t know me. I wasn’t yet someone most of Boston knew. But she trusted Steph, and she generously opened her collection to us.

I never forgot that.

Over the years, I followed Marie’s work and watched her continue to create these extraordinary pieces season after season. Her hats have always felt like more than accessories to me. They have personality. They transform a look. They ask you to commit.

So, seven years later, when I knew I was attending the Rose Garden Party, I reached out.

I asked Marie if I could come by and choose one of her hats. My original plan was very simple: I would buy something she had already made that worked with my dress.

Marie, apparently, had other plans.

I sent her photographs of the fabric. Videos. Pictures of the dress. Pictures of the shoes.

And what began as a visit to find a hat became a custom Marie Galvin creation.

The result was something I honestly could not have imagined myself.

When someone saw me at the party and said, “Melina, you are a beautiful color story from head to toe,” I knew exactly what she meant.

The hat didn’t simply match the dress.

It completed the story.

And perhaps that is what I love most about fashion—the way the right piece can change not only how you look, but how you feel.

When Marie delivered the hat, we had a chance to sit down and talk. Of course, I put my writer’s hat on—pun absolutely intended—and asked her about her former store in South Boston.

Marie told me, “I wanted her to exude Parisian chic. People love an experience and that was always my goal. Providing a welcoming environment, and I prided myself on wonderful customer service.”

That philosophy stayed with me.

Because ultimately, fashion is an experience.

It is the garment, yes. The color. The silhouette. The craftsmanship. But it is also the person who makes you feel seen, the person who takes a risk on you, the person who gives you a little bit of magic when you least expect it.

Marie is no longer at that South Boston location, but she remains deeply committed to her craft—and to the long list of people who adore her work.

I feel incredibly lucky to now be one of them.

Wearing a Marie Galvin hat to my first Rose Garden Party was more than getting dressed for an occasion. It was a full-circle moment.

Seven years after she generously loaned hats to a designer who was still finding her voice, I was sitting across from her as a designer who had learned to trust that voice a little more.

And this time, she was making something just for me.

There was something quietly beautiful about that.

Maybe the lesson is that some creative relationships begin long before we realize they matter. That generosity has a way of coming back around.

That the people who believe in your work early on can become part of your story in ways you never anticipated.

And sometimes, if you’re lucky, you get to wear the evidence.

Head to toe.