She’s Gotta LELE SADOUGHI
HANH MERRIMAN
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D A L L A S H OT E L M A G A Z I N E
later adding sunglasses, handbags, socks, hats, scarves, gloves, and masks. Her zesty headbands have been widely copied, but that is not slowing her down. “People want over-the-top crazy jeweled pieces, and that’s what I love to do,” she says over freshpressed green juice at Highland Park Village. “It’s all about innovation. While we sell basics every day, they want the special pieces because that is not being copied.” Attired in an orange and cream Delpozo jacket over an orange Rachel Comey dress and her own brand of sunglasses, earrings, headband, and handbag, Sadoughi is a walking advertisement for colorful style. She made a mint in masks, selling more than half a million in 2020 — many with matching headbands. Offered in kids and adult sizes, Sadoughi’s printed masks feature a contoured fit and adjustable ear loops. “Masks has been an insane category that gave us record revenue,” she says. “I get emails weekly from moms saying, ‘Can you please make more kids’ ones? My kids only wear your masks.’”
et setter and former style blogger Hanh Merriman combined her Vietnamese heritage and innate style in Hanh Collection, a new label. The capsule group of dresses, tops, pants, and outerwear in solid hues and delicate floral prints reflects “what we absolutely love,” says Merriman. “These designs are the reflection of my many years as a lover, observer, and interpreter of fashion,” she says. “I’ve always been fascinated by women’s relationship with fashion—what we want to wear and why, and how that answer changes over time. This collection is an answer for women in this moment and moving forward.”
Photos by Rudy Duboué
ele Sadoughi knows how to make a woman feel like a queen. Her bejeweled headbands look and feel like crowns, and they have adorned quite a few famous pates, including Kate Middleton’s. Sadoughi, whose name is pronounced “lee-lee sahdoogie,” has moved back home to Dallas and opened a pink jewel box of a boutique in Highland Park Village. “We’ve been thinking about it, and with Covid I realized that we can do things remotely,” says Sadoughi, who relocated from New York last summer with her husband and two children. “My whole family is here — my parents and my sisters. Between my sisters and my cousins, my kids have 21 cousins here. They were like, ‘Can we move here?’” Sadoughi worked for a couple of decades in New York for Rebecca Taylor and J. Crew, where she famously launched the brand’s jewelry collection and bestselling “bubble” necklace. In 2012, she went out on her own with bedazzled headbands and jewelry,
