Mel Usine is an exploration of the tension woven between sensuality and prudence, strength and vulnerability, transparency and opacity, masculine and feminine. Told through the lens of historical research and tropes of forgotten lore, Mel Usine creates an otherwise impossible dialogue between the historicity of dress with the codes of modern wardrobing.
Deploying a discerning emphasis on silhouette, proportion and texture, the materiality of Mel Usine curates cerebral clashes of provincially modest textiles with curious opulence. Mel Usine exists in this very sphere of opposites, mixing the temporality of memory with the exuberance of modernity.
At the heart of Mel Usine is a reverence for the precision of craft—centering savoir faire through surface design, luxurious fibers, sagacious fit, and precious details.
Mel Usine was conceived through an adoration of fashion and with a veneration of the female form in all of its embodiments
Stephen Biga, our Founder, received a BFA in Fashion Design from Parsons School of Design with a focus on womenswear and a BA in Culture & Media Studies from The New School with a concentration in critical identity theory and experimental cinema. He has worked in design at Proenza Schouler, Gabriela Hearst and Rodarte in Los Angeles and New York City. In 2024 he founded Mel Usine, serving as our Creative Director.
Our inaugural collection, Spring / Summer 2026, debuted in September 2025 in New York City, and was lauded by industry peers, garnering coverage from esteemed publications including: the New York Times, Vogue, i-D, Harper’s Bazaar, WWD, Vogue Business, and Who What Wear. Mel Usine was heralded by industry powerhouse Julie Gilhart as “fresh and distinctive” in an interview with Vogue Business, and was deemed by i-D magazine as “the future and present of New York Fashion Week.”
Our sophomore collection, Fall / Winter 2026, showed in February 2026 in New York City to positive reception, with coverage by W, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, WWD and Coveteur.