“Made in Kenya”—it’s not a label you expect to find sewn into a coquettish silk dress hanging in Barneys New York. But the two divergent locales come together in SUNO, a conscientious fashion line launched in 2008 by New Yorkers Max Osterweis and Erin Beatty, produced by local artisans in fair trade workshops in Nairobi and Nakuru, and now sold at the cult store. Osterweis founded SUNO (named after his mother) with the intent to do "something that can be a lasting economic force within Kenya," he explains, having spent more than a decade visiting the country and collecting vintage “kangas” (large rectangles of printed cotton traditionally worn by the women of coastal East Africa). SUNO began in a Kenyan workshop, employing a handful of tailors who had trained under a former costumer to London's Royal Opera House. But the designers are constantly introducing new skills to their team.“Without hindering the development of the collection, we try to make it aspirational for the Kenyan tailors as well,” Beatty says. The first season saw the kangas’ riotously colorful prints stitched into modern ensembles. With subsequent collections, the designers began fusing influences that span continents and decades––a progression that has led the duo to develop their own prints. "Seventies American maximalist interiors" was the starting point for the latest collection, which draws inspiration from Gustav Klimt’s Symbolist paintings, Indian beadwork, and travels to Turkey and Paris. Despite this multicultural cacophony, SUNO is ultimately designed for the women in the NYC fashion tribe. “She acts as a filter for all the influences,” Beatty says of their archetypal muse. Today we take an exclusive, behind the scenes look at SUNO's fall 2010 presentation.