Next year, Brandon Maxwell’s eponymous label will turn 10—an accomplishment at any time, but especially so in ours, with independent designers facing tough odds—and he’s been looking back at his earliest collections to see what resonates a decade later. He was a minimalist at the start, and he’s a minimalist now, but the attitude of this collection is a long way from his circa 2015 beginning.
Swapping styling gigs for the design studio, his early aesthetic was dressed up—way up. Lady Gaga, his client, was in his front row at his first show. Here, he de-emphasized the glamour that’s been associated with his work “in service of getting to something real, of coming down to reality,” he explained in his Flatiron showroom.
The collection’s starting point was a blouson-y faded denim jacket. Though it’s styled over a long chiffon dress in the picture, in real life, he expects his clients to wear it with the low-waisted, dropped crotch khakis that turn up later in the lookbook. With their snap-front waistband, they’re as casual as any pants as he’s shown, and they make a good complement for an asymmetric ribbed black t-shirt, with rhodium hardware at one of its draped shoulders. He did similar “knots” in 18-karat gold plate, as well as custom button in the shape of mini macaroons.
In his search for “something more casual and easy,” his latest runway collection leaned a shade too undone; this one struck a finer balance. There were pinstripes cut into a nipped waist little jacket and trousers, and pinstripes draped on the bias for an off-the-shoulder dress. A bomber in soft nappa leather and a “biker jacket” cardigan in lofty ribbed cashmere. And organza separates shot through with metal thread for a crushed texture that underscored their ease. “It has to evolve,” he said, “because I’ve evolved.”