Brandon Maxwell swapped a tiny Chinatown gallery space last season for the Brooklyn Navy Yard’s cavernous Duggal Greenhouse today. Putting those Walmart dollars to work, maybe? The designer was named creative director at the big-box retailer in 2021 for his firm handle on all-American sportswear. In his runway collections lately, Maxwell has emphasized the fancier end of his repertoire, possibly to build distinctions between his two places of business, but this collection demonstrated his range—and his roots.
Though he often talks about his Texas upbringing, in years of putting on shows he’s never sent anything down his runways like the waxed cotton barn jacket and coats that appeared on this one. He tweaked the jacket’s proportions so it flared at the hem in a subtle A-line. It’s a welcome addition to his repertoire, and it would look as good with his trouser jeans as it did with the matching circle skirt he paired it with.
Prints have been another rarity on his runways; he tends to like a head-to-toe color or monochrome, but he dipped his toe in here. The motifs were subtle: an aspen leaf and a barely perceptible striation pattern, that he said were inspired by a trip to the southwest, turned up on a dress layered underneath a narrow cardigan coat and a sleeveless midi-length sheath. “I’m not someone who usually designs to a theme, and this sounds kind of woo-woo,” he said, “but in nature there are fires, there are droughts, there’s rain, and ultimately it lives on and becomes more beautiful. I came back lighter.”
He made that feeling manifest in his emphasis on knitwear and soft constructions. A knit day dress was engineered to look like a shawl had been draped over its shoulders with it ends tied at the chest (in fact, it was all one piece), and for evening, he proposed a sleeveless knit polo dress with a swingy hem, a hunk of pyrite clasping its deep, buttonless placket. Soft doesn’t mean simple or banal. The show’s opening look, a white halterneck gown, was open at the side, revealing its three layers of silk. “It started very tight, but I ripped the seams at the shoulders, ripped the seams at the waist.” Soft, in Maxwell’s hands, isn’t safe or banal.
