Society Social and Framebridge Round Up a Fashionable Flock of Artists in Round Top

Running late from traffic in Austin, I pulled over on the side of a county road to change into my dress. Forget the makeup. But, hey, that’s a rite of passage in Round Top. Even the beautiful people get dusty and leave with a little more patina than they arrived with.

Round Top, Texas, serves as a siren song for those who love the thrill of the hunt. For insatiable materialists. For cosplay cowgirls. Since I check all of those boxes, I, along with swaths of fellow city slickers from Dallas and Houston, made my biannual pilgrimage to the tiny Texas town with a population of 97 people for the Round Top Antiques Fair.

Society Social, the chic North Carolina-based furniture company, once again returned to its popular tent at Blue Hills. For the fall show, they partnered with Framebridge to debut Studio by Society Social, an art-focused concept and curated gallery featuring original works from a roster of emerging artists, including Tara Roma Gill and Blakeley Made. Cheeky lifestyle fine art photographer Nick Mele was the only male artist represented. You may recall that, during the spring show, Society Social hosted a dinner with Mele that celebrated the debut of their “Pause Life, Play Games” limited-edition furniture collection.

For the fall show that just concluded, Society Social once again toasted their pop-up at the electric country playground that is Rancho Pillow, which I previously described as “a fever-dream manifestation of everything colorful and collected, wacky and wonderful about Round Top.” That still rings true.

During the height of Round Top madness, interior design darlings, creative entrepreneurs, and tastemakers joined Society Social owner Roxy Owens and Framebridge’s Vice President of Press & Strategic Partnerships Cole Wilson for golden hour cocktails and swapping stories of Round Top finds and regrets. An inspired dinner menu from Rancho Pillow’s Chef Casey Wilcox followed. The evening celebrated the creative spirit of Round Top, Society Social’s collaboration with Framebridge, and this inspiring collection of talented artists.

Though she is Polly Pocket-sized, I’d borrow Taylor Swift’s description of Travis Kelce and also call Owens “a human exclamation point.” Being in her orbit is joy-inducing and cup-filling. It’s no surprise that we all RSVP’d “YES!” as quickly as possible.

Owens tells PaperCity what keeps drawing her back to the magic of Round Top, saying, “Texas has a magic all its own — spirited, colorful, and full of heart — and Round Top embodies that energy completely. There’s something so special about the way people connect there, the sense of community and creativity that fills the tiny town. It gives us a chance to see Society Social through a new lens and to share our story in a way that feels deeply personal. Our dinner at the always-quirky Rancho Pillow was the perfect finale — a little unexpected, a lot of fun — just like Society Social.”

As soon as the Round Top dust settles, we can’t help but look forward to the next show. There’s something about its small-town magic that keeps drawing us back.

PC Spotted: Cole Wilson, Raven Roxanne, Diana Garrett, Brittany Atkinson, Elizabeth Sage, Natalie Lindsey, Kendra Brooks, Meg Clifton, Carla Valencia, Margaret Walker, Sarah Caruth, Robin Hewes, Lindsey Herod, Ashley Hunt, Savannah McPartland, Courtney Barton, Mary Patton, Nadia Palacios Lauterbach, Christy Doramus, and Courtney Petit.