New York Fashion Week kicks off in earnest today, but Emily Ratajkowski started the festivities early last night with one big fête. The model attended Cult Gaia’s party celebrating the opening of its flagship store in Soho. She wore an eye-catching black sheer Cult Gaia dress to the event.

In an interview with ELLE.com in November, Ratajkowski spoke candidly about how she found her confidence in the fashion industry, and what led her to try bangs. At last night’s parties, she had them styled as curtain bangs.

When asked how she projects confidence, Ratajkowski said, “I’ll trim the bangs, honestly, which is the ultimate confident move. I’ll trim the bangs, and then I think a red lip. If I just throw that on, I’m like, ‘Well, nobody can fuck with me,’ basically. You also have to work on confidence internally. So don’t fake it. I basically wait until I actually feel confident.”

The bangs were a “relatively” impulse decision. “I love them,” she said. “I never want to go back. All of my friends were like, ‘You cannot be this person. You cannot go through a breakup and get bangs.’ And I was like, ‘I’m going to be this person.’ And then all of them are like, ‘I’m so sorry, you were right; they look good.’ So I feel really great about it. I’m like, ‘I’m not just being crazy, I swear. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to not having bangs.”