It’s clear that Maja Dixdotter, nearing her second year at By Malene Birger, is feeling at ease and at home at the brand. In a short time she’s made textiles and texture her signatures, drawing on her experience working with interiors, no doubt. The plissé sets she showed for fall 2022 were a hit, and knitwear remains a key category. For pre-fall, light ribbed versions and openweaves shared space with cozier and denser knits. A column dress of rust-colored jersey with a pull-on cowled capelet was an example of warm minimalism at its best. Some of the looks in shiny satins, in contrast, read as glib.
The main story here was the exploration of “raw” textures. “I always find natural fibers very attractive and nice to work with. I think one of the first qualities I found was the super heavy linen with the long fringes; it just feels very close to nature,” Dixdotter saidon a call. “I think it’s fun to try to do something super feminine out of that [rawness]. Balancing the calm, neutral tones of the undyed linen are pops of a bright blue. As Dixdotter likened the process of building this collection to decorating a house, it’s fitting that the injection of color was inspired by a painting in the designer’s own home.
