This is a big year for Adeam and its founder Hanako Maeda. The label is celebrating its 10th-year anniversary, planning a return to New York Fashion Week this September, and launching a collaboration with Carolyn Murphy later this month at a pop-up store on Madison Avenue.
While Maeda’s fall 2022 collection focused on nostalgia, looking back at the preppy academic style of her childhood in New York City and her Into the Woods inspired first collection, she is looking decisively into the future for resort. “There was a lot of looking back the past few seasons,” she said during a preview, “but this season I wanted to look ahead and focus on the technical aspects of creating shape.” To do so, she looked closely at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection, which she used to visit often–there is definitely some nostalgia left in her, but her outlook for resort felt fresher and lighter.
Maeda’s main inspiration was Isamu Noguchi’s “Water Stone,” a stone-sculpted fountain set in an abstract garden that explores the relationship between exterior and interior space. This translated into deftly cut and draped pieces, most asymmetrical and made in monochrome colors.
A short trench jacket captured her East-meets-West aesthetic by merging the outerwear with a kimono, it was the most successful out of three trench experiments. The Noguchi inspiration translated the best into a navy sweater patchworked with five types of ribbed knit in different widths, mimicking the artist’s focus on texture and shadow over color.
This practice of patchwork and bricolage featured prominently in Maeda’s mind this season; constructing versatile pieces became a priority. “After the pandemic, the customer wants to find something they can dress up or down,” she said. While some looks came off slightly over-complicated, she had luck layering knitwear over woven items. The two-in-one nature of these pieces appears to be resonating with her customers. She says they’re doing well in both her Japanese and American markets, as they reflect the ease of pandemic dressing while feeling “a little bit more designed, more put together.”
“I feel like this season is almost a palette cleanser,” she said. That’s an apt description of not just the collection, but also Maeda’s frame of mind as she looks forward to 10 more years of Adeam.
