Misela marks New York anniversary with Paola Kudacki portraits

Misela did not treat its New York anniversary like a cake-and-candles moment. It used the occasion to recruit a serious cross-section of creative names, putting Paola Kudacki behind the camera to translate an Istanbul accessories brand for the city that still decides whether luxury feels relevant.

The result, Misela Portraits, read less like a commemorative campaign and more like a market-entry flex. Princess Deena Aljuhani Abdulaziz, Waris Ahluwalia, Maddie Moon, Sheree Hovsepian, Blue Lindeberg, Nazy Nazhand, Edoardo Mantelli, Demet Müftüoğlu Eşeli and Alphan Eşeli all stepped into the frame, giving Misela a cast that signals taste, access and cultural fluency. That matters in New York, where a new brand can buy a storefront but still has to earn a place in the conversation.

Misela opened its first New York store on Bond Street in Manhattan’s NoHo in 2025, a compact 750-square-foot space at 25 Bond Street. The footprint is modest, which makes the positioning even sharper: this is not a giant luxury rollout, it is a carefully edited foothold. Misela was founded in 2008 by Serra Türker Bayır, who studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and Parsons School of Design, and the brand now operates in Istanbul, London and Bodrum as well. The New York store gives the label a physical claim in a market where accessories brands often need more than an online presence to feel real.

Bayır framed the project around style, perspective and identity, using the prompt “What do you carry when you create?” to pull personal stories out of the subjects. That line lands because Misela’s proposition is already personal: handcrafted accessories made in Turkey, made-to-order personalization, and a language that mixes traditional Turkish craftsmanship with a modern finish. In other words, the portraits are not decoration. They are proof-of-life for a brand trying to move from niche recognition to global credibility.

Kudacki is a smart choice for that job. Her portrait work is known for character and emotion, which is exactly what Misela needs if it wants New York to see beyond product and into point of view. ISTANBUL’74, the arts-and-culture platform founded in 2009 by Demet Müftüoğlu-Eşeli and Alphan Eşeli, adds another layer of cultural network to the project, making the campaign feel like a bridge rather than a billboard.

So yes, this is brand-building. But it is also community-building, the kind that turns accessories into social currency. Misela is not just celebrating one year downtown. It is trying to prove that an Istanbul label can speak fluently in New York without losing its accent.