July in Miami is a swel­ter­ing hot mess, but given the fact that the evening’s title was HAUTE NATURED, then it came as no sur­prise that melt­ing into a pud­dle of makeup was already part of the evening’s expe­ri­ence. Show­ing at The Setai’s beau­ti­ful, open-​​air lounge, the night’s event com­bined four design­ers express­ing their love for eco-​​friendly style and nat­ural design ele­ments using recy­cled and re-​​purposed mate­ri­als. Although the amaz­ing 50-​​foot “walk-​​on-​​water” run­way is an archi­tec­tural mind buzz in itself; the music, the lights, the mod­els, the guests, the heat and of course the swimwear, made an evening to exhil­a­rate all of your senses.

The four col­lec­tions of the evening were ECO-​​SWIM by Aqua Green, Linda Lou­d­er­milk, MEADOW, and MAE Cou­ture, all of whom are well known and respected in the sus­tain­able fash­ion indus­try. Linda Lou­d­er­milk was recently rec­og­nized for cre­ated the world’s first “green” bikini which is fully com­bustible and given the oppor­tu­nity (that is, bury it in the dirt), it would com­pletely decom­pose within 180 days. That’s nuts!

Three col­lec­tions later, the show cul­mi­nated with Car­o­line Mae Heidenriech’s ultra-​​fab col­lec­tion, MAE Cou­ture. Let’s just say MC Ham­mer joins the mil­i­tary, meets Aladdin and comes back to col­lab­o­rate with Car­o­line Mae in design­ing some of the coolest para­chute pants, made from reused, vin­tage mil­i­tary para­chutes. This, along with beau­ti­ful, flow­ing coverup dresses cre­ated were the sig­na­ture high­light of her show. And I want them all!!

Check out the pho­tos from all four lines…

Rolling in straight from the air­port for the Mercedes-​​Benz Fash­ion Week Miami, I and our two fab­u­lous makeup artists, Melody Harper and Gina Balestri headed to the Lila Nikole run­way show under the tents behind the W Hotel. Greet­ing us at the front was Christina Lomauro, another fab makeup artist who wel­comed us in.

Lila Nikole debuted “Sum­mer Romance”, a com­bi­na­tion of The Beauty of Love & Bleed­ing Heart col­lec­tions. Both col­lec­tions expressed the title in which they were given, from fresh pas­tel laces and sweet ruf­fles to edgy bright hues such as red, bur­gundy and black. As a lead­ing swimwear designer, Lila Nikole’s swimwear is well-​​known among celebri­ties, socialites and fash­ion­istas look­ing for roman­tic, sweet, and sexy all in one.

In the throws of Miami’s hottest bod­ies in the coun­try, we kicked off Mercedes-​​Benz Fash­ion Week Swim at The Setai for Cos­mopoli­tan en espanol mag­a­zine. With the run­way sus­pended over a bed of water inside the main entrance, it was the per­fect set-​​up for a week in the sum­mer sun watch­ing the world’s hottest swimwear design­ers share their lat­est cre­ations to a world of media, fash­ion lovers, and beach bunnies.

The suits at this par­tic­u­lar show included favorites such as Ash­ley Paige, Char­lie by Matthew Zink, Iemanjá Swimwear and Ser­gio Rossi. Hot bod­ies on and off the run­way – guests included – wore lux­ury time­pieces by spon­sor Hublot Watches and essence of Eva by Eva Lon­go­ria perfume.

I par­tic­u­larly loved all the fun acces­sories paired with the suits: col­or­ful head­bands, fun & flowy cover-​​ups, and of course lots of heels!

Take a look at some of the footage, hot off the runway!