“They say a smooth sea never makes a great sailor,” the designer Maggie Marilyn Hewitt tells me during our Zoom appointment. She’s referring to the ways in which she has adapted her business in the last few years — she serendipitously went direct-to-consumer in early 2020 — but also about trying to survive the notoriously treacherous environment that the fashion industry can be for a small brand. “I started Maggie Marilyn when I was 21 and now I’m 28 and just seeing how much has changed in the last couple of years…” she trails off. “I think that’s what inspires me above everything, [that] after all the highs and lows of trying to build a brand over the last six years, I still really believe in the power of clothing, and how that can [change] how the wearer feels.”
That optimism and hopefulness were evident in the lookbook images, which featured fourteen “friends of the brand” self-styled in the collection’s new offerings and photographed as they seemingly went about their daily lives. A maxi dress with a shirred bodice and a drop waist made of organic cotton shows up in three separate occasions, and the way each woman has chosen to wear it imbues it with a different energy. The version in white, for example, is worn loose so the gathered fabric becomes more of a texture rather than a body-con detail, and is paired with a chunky black boot that turns it into the perfect throw-it-on-and-go dress; while the black version is paired with a slim-fitting black top and black sandals and it’s suddenly an elegant option. Similarly, a pair of slate straight-leg wool trousers with a slit at the back, had the ease of a pair of well-loved jeans when paired with a baggy jacket and a white shirt tied around the hips; when worn under a midi dress in the same fabric, it becomes a luxurious way to add a tomboy-ish edge to the clean lines of the dress. The coolest piece in the collection is a two-in-one sleeveless vest with matching bolero, in butter yellow and worn with a kicky plaid skirt and thigh-high boots, it’s hip and youthful in a Cher Horowitz-kind of way; but later when it appeared gain, this time in the slate, and worn with a slouchy black pant, it captures a certain vision of modernity and cool for actual grown-up women that want to look like grown-up women. Maybe it’s the insouciant charm of the extra-long sleeves.
“It sits well on your shoulders,” Hewitt added. At first, I wasn’t sure if she was talking about the weight of the wool crepe used throughout the collection, or the knowledge that the wool is fully traceable. What a luxury to not have to choose.
