At an Intimate Dinner, Brother Vellies’s Aurora James Asked What Color Is Nude?

“I love having events in spaces that feel like home,” said Aurora James, founder of sustainable shoe company Brother Vellies. She was clad in a top hat and checkered skirt and blazer, as though she had just stepped out of a Wes Anderson movie. And a cozy, at-home vibe is exactly what she delivered last night in the Wine Room at the Bowery Hotel’s quaint Italian restaurant Gemma for the launch dinner of her new Nudes shoe collection.

In collaboration with Moda Operandi, James was inspired to “recontextualize what nude means as a woman of color.” As a designer attuned to the nuances of melanin and skin tones in general, James explained, “A light pink can’t be the only reference for nude.” In a dimly lit room, a table—scattered with a mélange of sandy-, chocolate-, and hazelnut-hued flats and feathery sandals—sat in the corner, dripping candles dotted the space, and soft jazz filled the ears of all those in attendance.

“I wanted to bring together a small group of mostly women, from all different industries, who have had an impact on me, to kick off Black History Month and help celebrate this necessary collection,” James said of the impressive group that included Elaine Welteroth, Jordan Casteel, Lindsay Peoples Wagner, and Ibtihaj Muhammad.

During dinner, ladies got ready for their close-ups as a polaroid camera was passed around between courses of apple-hazelnut burrata and gnocchi with wild mushrooms. The meal was topped off with a heartwarming speech from James and ended on a sweet note with warm chocolate cake.

And when the meal was over, the laughter and girl talk didn’t stop. It seemed no one was ready to leave because, as Welteroth put it, “Aurora has a way of building an entire whimsical world around her work—it’s the kind of world where women of color feel celebrated, centered, and desired. It’s the kind of world I want to live in.”