The designer is celebrating Wednesday night with a spring 2027 presentation at The Piano Room at the Hotel Chelsea.

Nicole Miller, who will celebrate 45 years in business in 2027, has been obsessed with fashion since she was a little girl.

“My mother was French from Paris, and so we always had French fashion magazines at home. So I was like a kid in the Berkshires obsessed with fashion,” said the 74-year-old founder of Nicole Miller, in her showroom at 525 Seventh Avenue in New York City.

“I was hell bent on becoming a model, and measuring myself every day. It was like 5’4”, 5’4”, 5’4”, and never 5’4” and a quarter. So I thought, ‘I’ve got to switch gears here, and second choice, I’ll be a designer.”

Miller attended Rhode Island School of Design, and then did her own exchange program at the Chambre Syndicale in Paris, so she managed to get two degrees in four years.

After college she worked in New York City at Clovis Ruffin and then Rain Cheetas. One day she ran into a girlfriend from R.I.S.D. on the street, who said, “Oh, I got a new job and I’m going to Paris. I’m going to Hong Kong,” and Miller thought to herself, “I need a better job.”

She saw an ad in WWD for a company called P.J. Walsh, which read, “Designer willing to travel to Paris.”

” And that’s where she met Bud Konheim, who became her business partner for 37 years.

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