“I wanted to do something this time that if it never happened again I would be happy with it,” Brandon Maxwell said after his intimate fall show.
His collection was a beautiful, personal tribute to his grandmother “Mammaw” Louise, who is now suffering from Alzheimer’s. “The FW22 collection is an exercise in confrontation, acceptance, reverence and legacy,” show notes read. A show-opening video montage reflected on the designer’s lifework and childhood — his love of clothing attributed to his grandmother’s wardrobe and her teachings.
“Mammaw’s clothes, and those in the store she managed, taught me forms that I wanted to take further. I like this idea so much that I made it my lifework,” notes echoed.
Maxwell’s collection further paid homage to his childhood, learning to make ballgowns with bed sheets and blankets, or handbags out of his grandmother’s emptied jewelry boxes. Blanket knits (shawls, fisherman jumpers and the full skirts of evening gowns) and crushed satin layers (ivory topcoats and structured minidresses) in a dusty Texas palette brought forth the comfort and coziness of home while his finale floral printed gown was a “literal valentine” to his grandmother (the print lifted from his grandfather’s painting) as Brandi Carlile’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” softly played in the background. Garments were fueled by a shared passion and love of craftsmanship, a continual form of communication between Maxwell and his grandmother.
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“I think it was a back-to-roots collection in totality for me,” he explained, adding a lot of the collection’s sleek, tailored sportswear and romantic evening silhouettes and patterns were brought back from his first and second collections. “We spent a long time trying to create the ‘is this going to be of the moment? Is this going to be cool?’ And in fact, that’s not who I am, it’s not who I’ve ever been. I’ve gone through a lot of things in the last two years of my life and this was real to me, this is who I am.”
The result of the presentation’s romantic, melancholic mood was incredibly moving — almost to the point of tears; messages of hope, reflection and fierce familial love that resonated far beyond the garments themselves.