Color, print, and texture were the big messages from Tomas Maier for Pre-Fall. Arranged on racks in the label’s New York City showroom, the collection was divided into distinct, but coordinating groups. Warm coats and vests combined different shades of short and long shearling with goat hair. Floor-length jersey dresses were spliced together like intarsia, a much more complicated technique than merely printing the fabric would’ve been. Tailored pieces, too, were patchworked together from a tropical wool and cashmere blend material in multiple colors, though patchwork is too crafty a word for the sharp results.
A lot of thought and work went into these clothes, in other words. Maier is a designer who values the process of making things. His trick was to render those labor-intensive pieces in truly effortless ways. Effortless is an overused word in fashion, but it was especially apt here, what with the flats he opted to pair with most of the looks. Those flats followed a similar m.o.: demanding for Maier and co. to do, but not to wear. On some pairs, the leather was printed with a micro floral, woven in the house-signature intrecciato style and embroidered. They looked particularly sweet accessorizing light-as-air chiffon dresses in mixed prints with rickrack trim—high-summer versions of the smash-hit printed dresses from Maier’s Spring ’13 BV collection that we all remember so well.
