Sea built its wholesale relationships slowly, through Barneys, Neiman Marcus and Saks rather than a splashy runway debut, and there is a similar unhurried quality to tops that favor romantic detail, ruffles and volume, over anything aggressively trend-driven. It is the more vintage-leaning half of the Paolini and Monahan partnership showing through.

Dresses are arguably where Sea's identity is clearest: soft, feminine, a little nostalgic, the kind of thing that reads like Paolini's years designing at Jill Stuart never fully left her. The label didn't open a physical store until December 2018, more than a decade after founding, so the dresses have always had to carry the brand's whole point of view on their own.

This is the more pared-down side of the label, closer to Monahan's cleaner instincts than Paolini's romanticism, and it balances out a collection that could otherwise tip fully into whimsy. The two founders have described the brand as a genuine collaboration rather than one person's vision, and pieces like these are where that shows.

Swim is a smaller, more recent-feeling category for a company that spent its first decade building a ready-to-wear identity out of a Canal Street live-work space, so it reads as an extension of the romantic, feminine mood rather than a technical swimwear play. Nothing about Sea's history points to a swim specialism, and the assortment doesn't pretend otherwise.

The rest of the edit fills out a label that has grown from an online-only startup with no storefront into a brand with a Shanghai store as of 2025, all while staying built around the same two founders and their friendship. It is a slower, steadier growth story than most direct-to-consumer labels can claim, and the clothes still look like two people agreeing on something rather than a committee.

Sea's whole appeal is that it still reads like two childhood friends making decisions together rather than a brand chasing a trend calendar, and that consistency is rare after nearly two decades in business. It also means the romantic, slightly nostalgic mood doesn't flex much season to season, so it rewards a customer who already knows she wants that register.