On a steamy June morning, Hanako Maeda’s vision for Resort 2017 could hardly have felt more resonant. The ADEAM designer’s mood board was outfitted with images of traditional yukatas, the warm-weather, casual kimonos from her native Japan. They’re hundreds of years old, but something in their simplicity and offhanded elegance felt particularly right. Worn slung low off the shoulders (think: along the lines of Balenciaga parkas) and cinched artfully but un-preciously at the waist, the garment looked definitively cool.
Of chief interest to Maeda in recent seasons has been riffing on a traditional Japanese aesthetic vocabulary with 21st-century forms. Rarely has she struck upon that as elegantly as with Resort’s lushly textured shibori organzas; whipped into floor-skimming gowns and strapless crop tops, they made for a very pretty synthesis of East and West. To note of the former: Maeda’s eveningwear is an unsung strong suit. Those lovely dresses would be a welcome break from the conveyor belt of usual red carpet and black-tie suspects.
The action wasn’t all after sunset, though. Maeda has honed her eye for offhanded daywear, genuinely easy, slouchy styles like her cotton cashmere hoodie sweater or louche trench in an indigo-dyed linen. Looking back to her Fall ’14 collection, when she was a considerably younger designer, spare, slightly sportif pieces like those would have been unimaginable amid her then-ladylike vernacular; her line’s evolution is a pleasure to witness.
