Creative director Max Schiller latched onto the season’s throwback vibe by channeling a childhood idol: Michael Jordan. “It’s hard not to be inspired by him,” the designer pointed out. Scottie Pippen made the cut too. A collection called “Off-Court Decadence” headlined basketball shoes and oversized tailoring, with nods to the late photographer Lars Tunbjörk (“he was like a Swedish Martin Parr,” Schiller explained) and the tennis star Anna Kournikova, for her off-duty style circa 2001—reinterpreted here in a none-too-subtle scoop-neck cardigan dress in pink velvet crochet and a Nascar-esque racing jacket.
Put them all together and you get a mingling of high lapels, boss shoulders, and elongated hemlines; double-breasted jackets with jeans and “millennial-futuristic” sneakers; plus loose bombers with detachable collars. Women’s options included a slim black greatcoat, a Glen check jacket and miniskirt with a label in the shape of a pin, and “aerodynamic” boots with a forward-slanting heel. Now in its third iteration, that Schuppan race-car-inspired design is doing well with men too, the designer said. In its notes, the brand described the mood as “an empowered 9-to-5 silhouette with a paparazzi-friendly attitude to match.” To this reporter, it evoked the heyday of Men in Black.
Special treatments and finishes were also a focus. A heat-pressed, creased viscose with a crocodile print transformed from tiny on the hanger to abstract on the body. Denims were finished with shiny or pearlescent coatings, and perhaps paired with a gradient Norwegian fisherman knit that could be worn right side or inside out. A stylized E appeared subtly on that pink dress, and more overtly on a men’s black mesh tank. On one sweatshirt, a pony toy photographed in negative was a side-eye to the MTV series Jackass. Throwback, maybe, but seen through different, more optimistic eyes. In that vein, the brand has decided to throw its energy into reviving the appeal of print: It has just released a revival of EY! Magateen in collaboration with the Spanish editor and publisher Luis Venegas. “It’s really good for my attention span to sit down and read,” offered Schiller. “The phone is too quick to stick.”