In Advance of New York Fashion Week, Nili Lotan Collaborates with The Kills

It began with dinner at Chateau Marmont. “We met and giggled for three hours. We started talking about creative things—and then doing creative things together,” Alison Mosshart, fine artist and lead singer of rock duo The Kills, shared with Surface. Mosshart and The Kills guitarist Jamie Hince were in a pop-up green room inside a suite at another hotel—The Carlyle—with Nili Lotan, ahead of a party for the fashion designer’s debut handbag collection and their collaborative Fall 2025 collection campaign.

“Those kinds of places are where things come together,” Hince added, “at a table with a lot of people from different walks of life sharing their creativity.” These early moments led Lotan to cast Mosshart and Hince in the campaign. Photographed by Gray Sorrenti, the still images convey rock-star style and a sense of movement—a metaphoric electric energy—even in the quieter scenes. The Kills then brought this stage presence to Lotan’s bag launch at Cafe Carlyle, performing to an intimate crowd that included Beck, Maggie Rogers, Laura Prepon, and more.

For the campaign, Lotan selected Sear Sound as the shoot location—unaware that it factored into the band’s history. In 2004, Mosshart and Hince came to New York City to record their second album. They lived in and wrote songs from the Chelsea Hotel, but recorded at Sear Sound. “When we came to New York for this campaign, we stayed at the Chelsea Hotel, and we went to Sear Sound for the shoot. There’s magic in that,” Hince said.

“It was like reliving a part of your life,” Mosshart added. “The energy was so good because we were so excited to be there. You feel a lot—to be in a time capsule like that, and to look around and realize it’s exactly the same.”

Lotan said the campaign direction came from Gray’s vision, which allowed for the kismet. “To me, it was very fluid. Things just happened,” she said. “It’s their energy and my clothes. There’s a dialogue. That’s what Gray captured. There was not much conversation about what anyone would do. We’re all rebels; if someone told us what to do we probably wouldn’t even listen.”

Lotan launched her eponymous label 20 years ago. “I built it from a very small capsule, category by category, into a full lifestyle brand,” she added. “The most natural thing right now is to let the women who wear my clothes carry a bag that has the same attitude.” Lotan produces her bags—many of which have since sold out—in Italy and Spain.

When asked about their cross-media output, and what it says about them as artists, Hince noted that “every now and again I kind of go on these kind of narcissistic, self-obsessed journeys where I try to listen to everything I’ve ever done from the end to the beginning. I’m proud of it. That’s the greatest thing I can ever say.”

For Mosshart, it’s the continued influence their music has had. “I see young kids—eight- or nine-year-old girls—coming to shows and being so inspired and so excited. I see that their parents are people who have been coming to shows for years. It’s this generational thing. That really makes me so glad about what I do.” That said, she added, “I am fine with being full of secrets and leaving lots of things for people to discover.”