Maggie Delany Brings EPN Fashion Week to a Bridgehampton Estate

There is a version of this story that reads like a press release. Sixteen seasons. Forbes. Time Out. A private Bridgehampton estate on Saturday, August 8. All of it true, but none of it the reason I am writing.

I have known Maggie and Hubert Delany for twenty years. The Hamptons fashion show they bring east this week is not a debut. It is the part of a very long story where the two of them finally stop commuting.

Most people in this business are interesting for about one season. But the Delanys have been interesting for sixteen.

The February Nobody Remembers

Magdaline Delany, who has gone by Maggie since long before anyone was calling her a producer, founded EPN with her husband Hubert Delany in February 2010. EPN stands for the Entrepreneurs and Professionals Network. Of course, nobody founds anything in February. The city is grey, the money is nervous, and every venue you want is either booked or bankrupt.

They did it anyway, with no institutional backing and no blessing from the fashion establishment. Maggie brought a finance degree, two master’s degrees, and a habit she never grew out of. Since middle school she had been staging fashion shows. Then high school. Then college. Hubert brought the temperament that makes a partnership survive its own early years.

What I remember from that stretch is not the shows. It is the two of them talking about the next one before the current one had finished paying for itself. That is either faith or stubbornness. After sixteen years, the distinction stops mattering.

What Loyalty Looks Like in a Business That Eats It

In fact, fashion partnerships dissolve. Usually around year four, usually over money, usually loudly. Theirs did not, and the same two names still sit on the program.

That constancy shows up on the other side of the runway too. Iconic designer Malan Breton keeps returning to EPN, and he has no structural reason to. He has dressed Emma Thompson, Janelle Monáe and Priyanka Chopra. Still, he comes back, and Forbes named the EPN solo show built around his Fantôme collection one of its top twenty New York Fashion Week highlights.

Time Out New York has called their runway extravaganza the best NYFW event in the city. That line is not for sale. Anyone who has tried to buy one knows the difference.

The venue in Manhattan is the Léman Ballroom on Broad Street. Gilded, marble, entirely unbothered by trend. Sixteen seasons in the same room is its own kind of statement in a city that changes addresses to seem new.

Loyalty is the through-line here. It also happens to be the reason designers trust Maggie Delany with a debut.

Maggie Delany and the Door She Keeps Propping Open

Her stated reason for building EPN Fashion Week was simple. High fashion had glamour but not access, and she wanted both in the same room.

Specifically, look at who has actually walked it. A Bhutanese designer making her NYFW debut. A Croatian designer bringing Zagreb tailoring to Broad Street. The president of Miss Universe Switzerland, showing swimwear. Not one of them gets a traditional Tuesday slot. All of them leave with American press, American photography, and an American credential.

Equally, the charity habit runs alongside it. The Delanys donate free backpacks and school supplies to underprivileged students. In March 2026, Maggie started adding literature books to the backpacks, because she believes every child deserves the chance to discover the joy and power of reading.

The reasoning is not complicated. A book in a backpack invites a young reader into new worlds, wider knowledge, and a deeper appreciation for storytelling. She sees literacy as the most durable form of empowerment available to the next generation, and she wants reading to become a treasured part of a student’s life rather than an assignment.

She told Dan’s Papers that everything they do supports a cause. Sixteen seasons later, the line still shows up in the budget rather than only in the announcement.

There is a quiet argument inside all of this. Established fashion trades on exclusion, because exclusion is the product. Maggie Delany bet the other way, on the theory that talented outsiders with ambition are effectively infinite. She was right, and the ticket sales have said so for sixteen years.

The Unglamorous Part

Vision is certainly cheap out here. Execution is the rare thing, so look at what Hubert and Magdaline Delany actually built underneath the runway.

In fact, EPN is not one company. It is a network the Delanys put north of 150,000 members worldwide. Entrepreneurs, CEOs, physicians, attorneys, real estate operators, tri-state and well past it. On top of that sits EPN Spotlight Magazine, their own publication. Beside it runs WEPN, the women’s arm.

That structure exists for a specific reason. A runway show lasts a few hours, but the coverage lasts six months. Every designer who walks an EPN show gets pre- and post-event marketing. Photography, video and feature placement move through the magazine and the network’s channels for the rest of the season.

The room itself is engineered the same way, so the value lands on the sponsor too. VIP guests get a reception and a red carpet rather than a seat and a program. Sponsors sit inside that experience rather than on a banner outside it. Last September the New York reception was sponsored by Chris Panzeca, who owns the Watermill private club Zoe, which tells you the East End had already noticed.

Maggie describes that reception without sentiment. It is where editors decide who they will feature. Also where buyers spot a trend, and where a collaboration worth millions starts with a handshake.

Bridgehampton, Finally

Of course, the Hamptons chapter is not new. In 2019 the Delanys staged an EPN Hamptons Fashion Extravaganza at The Spur East, and it produced one of those nights people still describe at dinner. An Australian designer built a couture gown live on the catwalk in under fifteen minutes. A lawyer won the auction to have his bride’s wedding dress made by the same hands.

Then the world closed. After that, the East End sat on the shelf for six years.

August 8 is the return, and the format is the point. Not a tent. Not a club with a rope. A private legacy estate south of the highway on Halsey Lane, which is the only kind of setting where the collection and the audience occupy the same social register. The runway ends where the party starts.

The timing is deliberate too. February and September belong to Manhattan. July belongs to polo and benefit season. Early August is the week the East End is fullest and least programmed, and sixteen years of calendar management taught the Delanys exactly where that gap sits.

For any brand reading this, that gap is the entire argument. One Bridgehampton lawn in August holds the guest list a Manhattan showroom spends a quarter chasing. If you want the wider context on why these afternoons matter commercially, we broke it down in our guide to Hamptons fashion events and the parties nobody talks about.

The Details: EPN Hamptons Runway Extravaganza

EPN Spotlight Magazine presents the Hamptons Runway Extravaganza, and the afternoon is built around a solo presentation rather than a group showcase. Celebrated designer Jessica Robinson unveils her Apres-Sun Collection, eclectic and built for exactly this latitude in exactly this month.

The estate does the rest of the work. Architectural distinction, a seamless blend of modern luxury and classic sophistication, and the kind of grounds that make a red carpet look like it was always supposed to be there. Haute fashion, luxury, entertainment and society in one place for three hours, which out here counts as a full season.

Where The Conversation Continues

Twenty years of friendship gives me one unfair advantage in writing this. I know what Maggie and Hubert are like at 11 p.m., when the last model is still in the wrong shoes and the lighting cue has failed twice. Calm. Still a little funny about it. Already talking about the next one.

Ultimately, that temperament built sixteen seasons. It is also why August 8 deserves more than a polite nod on your calendar.

A private estate has a fixed capacity, and this one is not negotiable. Tickets are on Eventbrite now, and the good seats behave the way good seats always behave out here.

Find the Invite and Buy Tickets

For designers who want the runway, brands who want the room, and anyone who wants to sponsor or participate in a future EPN production, Maggie Delany takes those notes herself. Reach her directly at [email protected]. You can also find EPN Fashion Week at epnfw.com and Maggie’s own work at maggiedelany.com.

Bridgehampton in August rewards whoever committed in July. The rest of you will read about it here.

xo Cass