There's a cadre of girls who are getting into tailoring now—they're out there at the shows, working strong-shouldered blazers over dresses, and striding around looking good in sharp-line pants again. That's a trend swing sure to track upward for Fall, but after such a long phase in which designers have ditched structure for bubble shifts, who's left that can still cut it? MaxMara is one company that remains equipped to do the job properly, and its Fall collection smartly laid the jackets, tweeds, and impeccable coats on the line.
According to the program notes—and the soundtrack—Roxy Music-era London glam was the inspiration. That gave a (thankfully mild) seventies-slash-forties excuse for a tweed coat with bristling fox-fur sleeves that opened the show, and the tweaked-up padded shoulder lines that followed from there. There were fine alpaca coats and sleeveless, slightly A-line jackets whose cuts followed in the slipstream of the ideas pioneered by Stefano Pilati and Roland Mouret last season. The reiteration of the shoulder kept coming in knitwear, including boleros done in oversize Aran-knit patterns with thick cable tubes circling the upper arm. After that, a slow drift into tinsel cardigans, sweaters, and unforgiving Lurex jersey dresses threatened to wipe out the classiness, but never mind. The moral: MaxMara looks best when it's not trying too hard, as demonstrated by the charcoal-gray pantsuit and chiffon tie-necked blouse with a coat jacket shrugged over the shoulders by the insouciant Lily Donaldson. That's the way to do it.
