Fern Mallis once joked that she wanted to do a book about grandmothers because designers cite their nanas as inspiration more than any other relative—a fact I can verify. That’s not the case for Bach Mai, however; his spring show was inspired by his father, whose hard work at an oil refinery in Texas made a career in fashion possible for his son. “I thought a lot about his sacrifice and how he wore blues to work everyday. He wore these blue coveralls—that’s where the term ‘blue collar’ comes from,” said Mai, whose blue hair complemented his collection.
Spring marks the first time that Mai has shown his work on models, and he took a strong position when it came to his first casting. “I wanted to do the best we could to show diversity,” he said. “We had curve girls, we had mid-size girls… a whole range to show that my version of glamour is for everyone.”
Mai has made no secret of his admiration of Cristóbal Balenciaga, whose asymmetric dresses inform Mai’s best-selling full-skirted styles (Martin Margiela is another of his idols). But for spring, Mai found inspiration in the trapeze line Yves Saint Laurent introduced at Christian Dior in 1958. This season, the designer said, was “all about shape.”
Baby-doll styles already do well for the brand, and Mai iterated on already popular styles while adding new ones. It took many tries, he said, but he finally got the placement of a pleat on trapeze-legged evening pants just right. And right on time, too: more celebrities are opting for trousers on the red carpet.
Bias-cutting, especially for ’90s nostalgic slip dresses, has been popular this week; in line with his idea of creating airier shapes, Mai used bias for a different purpose, creating slip shapes that draped, rather than clung. To these he added a dramatic sheer insert to reveal the leg, which was a felicitous, graphic touch with a bit of sizzle. Overall, his use of sheer and floaty fabrics was better balanced than in the past.
As Mai works in partnership with the French textile house Hurel, he has access to amazing fabrics, like a metallic moire, meant to recall steel, and a technical organza that Mai said reminded him of an oil spill. These metallics were convincing; the shiny “newborn alien” makeup distracting.
Along with the trapeze shape, blue was a major through-line here. Mai’s father’s workwear was made of fire retardant twill, and the designer made his voluminous party dress in twill. He also made good use of a blue-and white tweed, especially when he gave weight to a sheet dress with the addition of tweed rosettes near the hem, which was an unexpected but effective contrast.
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Photo Credit: Pixabay
