MARGINALIA NO. 1

02/10/2026

"Dear Guests," — Celebrating Genie's First Anniversary

On February 10, 2025, Genie became legally incorporated from my dorm room at Princeton University. One year later, we are based in New York City. In that time, we have put on a runway show, hosted a New York Fashion Week event, and launched our first collection. It still feels surreal to write that down, and at the same time, it feels like we are only just beginning.

In Korea in January 2025, I bought fabric in Dongdaemun that became the final two looks of the Metanoilepsis Collection, shown at Chancellor Green Library at Princeton University.

The earliest samples of the Hôtel Tassel Collection were made in Romania that same month. Nearly a year later, I was still iterating on many of those same designs. The work rarely moves in a straight line.

Being largely a one-person team working on Genie full time, much of the process happens in isolation. Ideas live in my head for a long time before they become real. At the same time, the project feels much bigger than myself. From the very beginning, I wanted Genie to exist as more than a fashion brand—to grow into a multidisciplinary fashion house, one that weaves fine art, film, and poetry into its structure and foundation from the start. That ambition is deeply exciting, and at times, completely overwhelming.

Genie would not exist without my family, my closest friends, the investors who believed in the idea early on, and the customers who took the time to share their thoughts and feedback. I owe so much to the people who encouraged me at moments when I wasn’t yet sure where any of this would lead. I often wonder whether, without the right people stepping in at the right time, I would be doing this work with the same conviction I have now.

This gratitude extends to my creative collaborators—photographers, videographers, stylists, models, makeup artists—as well as the manufacturers, studios, seamstresses, and interns I’ve had the pleasure of working with over the past year. From the beginning, it mattered to me that the people behind the work were seen and credited, and I will continue to make that visible on the website and in future projects.

Community was always one of the pillars I imagined for Genie. Yet over time, the word itself began to feel hollow—flattened by overuse, especially in an era where “it’s not just about clothes, it’s about community” has become a default tagline rather than a lived reality. For a while, I felt pressure to use the language of community without fully knowing what it meant or whether what I was doing qualified as “community building” at all.

The Hotel Tassel event was the first moment when something shifted. Having people show up around the work—spending time with it, engaging with it, and being present—made the project feel less solitary. I wouldn’t say I set out to build a community, or that it was ever the goal in itself. But having people around the work, rather than the work existing entirely in isolation, made me believe in it more deeply. I love making the clothes and the art for their own sake, and I’m grateful that the work can also move beyond me.

As I work on the next collection, I’m thinking more intentionally about the people who will wear the clothes first—how they will feel in them, and how they will move through the world with Genie alongside them.

To everyone who supported Genie when it was still finding its footing: thank you. I’m excited to keep building, learning, and showing you what’s next.

With gratitude,

Jeanie
Founder, GENIE