Eytys slowly eased into fashion from footwear, starting with denim and graduating to ready-to-wear in fall 2019. Kick-starting the fall look book is a photograph of a model in a leather coat and a killer pair of cyber cowboy boots with an angular, pistol-like heel, which made me wonder what the relationship between shoes and garments is at this point in the brand’s trajectory. “It’s a shared mood board, basically,” said Max Schiller from Paris. “We’re working with the same ideas and the same themes…what I like to work with is to always let either one or the other be the hero. So when we allow ourselves to do very maximalist and eye-catching footwear, I like to tone down the ready-to-wear it’s paired with because that’s how I like to see people dress.”
Using this criteria, it seems this was a strong shoe season. Overall, the fall collection is easygoing, with a strong focus on transforming classics through textural treatments. A rugby shirt moves beyond classic when fabricated in a mix of terry and knit. The striped Oxford shirt in Look 2 has been laser cut to give it texture. Lasers are also responsible for the dégradé on the jeans in 4, eliminating the need for washes. The hero piece in the denim category is an indigo-free pair of pants printed with an ocean-scape.
Schiller believes that variety is the spice that brings Eytys’s fashion to life. “I’m always trying to find things that are completely disconnected; when putting them together, that’s when I think it becomes interesting,” he said. This can cause a bit of whiplash as the viewer clicks from athletic motocross tops to pinstripes and onto cropped knitwear and tie-dye without the benefit of the accompanying mood board or references. Schiller says that lately he’s been exploring how to incorporate “several ideas within the same garment” (those motocross pieces are composed of layers, each with different artworks that “bleed through”). That’s something he’s been doing with footwear all along—take another look at those boots. If the shoe fits…
