Black Style Matters captures Leslie Amon’s ‘The After Sun’: a sunrise‑inspired swimwear show where Black models, natural beauty, and ethical craft reclaim luxury, joy, and culture on Miami runway.
When Miami’s balmy night air settled into the PARAISO tent for Leslie Amon’s Resort 2026 presentation, it felt less like another stop on the Swim Week circuit and more like a sunrise ritual. The show—aptly titled “The After Sun”—promised a narrative of rebellion, freedom, and barefoot abandon. For Black spectators (and for the Black Style Matters community worldwide), it delivered something even deeper: a radiant meditation on Black femininity, joy, and self-definition in a space where our bodies historically appear as afterthoughts.
Set “against the golden backdrop of a Miami evening,” as the official show notes poetically put it, Amon’s collection tracked the emotional arc of a carefree night that spills into morning. Yet the runway revealed another arc—the steady ascension of Black representation in swimwear fashion. Black models didn’t just make cameos; they carried the show’s central thesis. Their presence reframed the collection’s palette of fiery corals, dawn‑washed pinks, and shimmering pearlescents as shades that inherently celebrate melanin rather than contrast it.
The opening look, a glossy coral‑to‑rose ombré bikini trimmed in hot‑pink binding, hugged its wearer like the horizon catching first light. A subsequent look floated down the runway in a sorbet‑toned chiffon gown, its pastel braids cinched at the waist evoking braided hairstyles across the diaspora. Each twirl made the gown’s pleated panels appear as soft watercolor streaks—an intentional reminder that Black elegance can be fluid, pastel, and tender.
Hours before the first beat dropped, the backstage area buzzed with hot‑comb steam, coils of extension hair, and the easy shorthand shared among Black beauty pros. New York Makeup Academy artists dusted chocolate‑gold body shimmer onto clavicles and brushed brows upward rather than erasing them—techniques that center Black features instead of diluting them.
“We’re not masking anything,” one lead artist told Black Style Matters amid the whirl of ring‑lights and last‑minute lip‑gloss taps. “We’re amplifying what’s already there.”
That philosophy manifested in the runway’s hair story: free‑form afros haloed like orbital crowns; cornrow‑to‑puff hybrids that married tradition with runway polish; waist‑length wet‑look curls that bounced with every bass drop. In an industry still obsessed with “glass‑hair” minimalism, seeing a row of Black models rocking texture on Miami’s biggest swim stage felt downright insurgent.
Leslie Amon’s design vocabulary—“sunset‑bright colors, flowy dresses that dance with the wind, and revisited Hawaiian prints”—lands differently when draped on diasporic bodies. Amon cut bikinis with curved under‑bands that actually accommodate busts beyond sample size; mesh dresses that hugged hips without flattening their architecture; and micro‑shorts that surrendered to thighs instead of strangling them.
A standout knit mini featured iridescent crochet disks stitched across a pastel net. Up close, the disks resembled mother‑of‑pearl; from a distance, they sparkled like the constellation of stretch marks many Black women earn and wear proudly.
Meanwhile, a sheer black pleated cover‑up fastened with a gold sunburst medallion gave its wearer the air of a cosmic high priestess. The piece swung open with each step, framing a torso in a V that read as both vulnerable and invincible—because Black skin under sheer fabric still signals fearlessness in an audience conditioned to police it.
Beyond aesthetics, Amon’s brand DNA of ethical production and woman‑led craftsmanship resonates with African and Caribbean traditions of collective making. Every garment, we’re told, is “handmade by women artisans around the world.” That promise rang louder as Black models paraded garments whose bead‑work, braiding, and fringe echo ancestral handiwork. Representation, here, isn’t only who walks the runway, but whose hands stitch the seams.
It’s impossible to celebrate this show without remembering 2024’s watershed moment: the CROWN Act expanding to 25 U.S. states, banning hair‑based race discrimination. One year later, Black models wearing untreated kinks on a major swim runway feels less like a win and more like a standard that can no longer be negotiated. Amon’s casting may read as progressive, but it also recognizes that authenticity converts to sales—and Black consumers hold a projected $1.8 trillion in spending power by 2026.
When the final model stepped out—barefoot, bikini‑clad, and backlit by a digital sunrise—the show could have ended in the usual wave‑and‑smile. Instead, a hush fell. The lights dimmed to a warm amber reminiscent of morning afterglow, underscoring the closing narrative: “She smiles and whispers a silent thank you—for the sunrise, for being alive, and for the pure joy of feeling everything.”
For Black viewers, that silent thank you expanded outward. It thanked hairdressers who carry heat protectant sprays in their kit despite venue bans on aerosols. It thanked the models whose feet chap under Cebu‑concrete but refuse to forgo shea butter to “look less shiny.” It thanked every Black swim pioneer—from Donyale Luna’s studio shoots to Beyoncé’s Black Is King water scenes—who cracked open the door so Miami Swim Week could swing it off its hinges.
We don’t just cover clothes; we chronicle culture. Leslie Amon’s “The After Sun” confirmed what we’ve long argued: true luxury is not whiteness draped in new fabrics, but inclusivity threaded into design, casting, and storytelling from conception. When the sun set on Miami and dawn bled across the Atlantic toward Black Style Matters HQ, it carried with it a message: We are the after sun. We are the pulse that keeps fashion’s heart beating past midnight, glowing until the next new day.
Credits:
Collection: Leslie Amon Resort 2026 — “The After Sun”
Presented by: COVERGIRL at Miami Swim Week 2025
Photos: Getty Images for Leslie Amon
Keywords: summer trends 2025, quiet luxury, summer outfit, summer 2025, Black Girl Luxury
