Bree Runway has been hiding something. Her trademark oversized Gucci sunglasses have long snapped in half, a confession she relays to her 266,000 followers on Instagram hours before we speak. “Listen… Bye!” Bree laughs, snapping her fingers with a delightfully camp energy when I quiz her about the famous lenses. It’s been a profound source of distress that she’d kept in the dark since 2021 – “I couldn’t even admit to anyone that those glasses were no longer with us because they are literally Bree Runway. I remember I picked them up one day, I think I was going to Lady Gaga’s launch for House of Gucci, and I put them on, did nothing crazy, and the arm just snapped off! My heart was torn to shreds because they’ve been essential. If a pair of glasses could sum up Bree Runway, it would be them.” As though the pair had a sentient life, she recalls how they’ve been around “like a whore” at different repair shops to be fixed without any luck. Fortunately, her team managed to source a pair from a seller through Vestiaire Collective, an eCommerce platform for sourcing pre-loved and archival fashion. “I’m so happy; I feel complete again.”
Bree is recounting her woes poolside in California, wearing the star-studded sunglasses in question teamed with a black bikini while waiting for her hotel room to be ready. Like hundreds of thousands of others, she is in Palm Springs for the first weekend of Coachella. This year, though, she’s not performing at the festival but as part of Soho Desert House, a pop-up experience in La Quinta, a desert oasis six miles from the main Coachella site. “I wish I could give the Bree Runway maximum today, ” she begins, citing the limited production capacity of the Desert House stage. “I wish I could bring wind machines to blow my hair and shit, like how it is at a normal Bree Runway show. But I’m still
