“This is it, these are my girls,” Bach Mai said during his spring collection presentation, motioning to a vignette of models clad in bright blue dressings. Spring marks the designer’s first shown on models — diversity in casting to display glamour for all was noted of high importance.
“The blue comes from my father, who used to wear blue coveralls every day because he worked at an oil refinery. It’s really an homage to him and his uniform. We have twills that are transformed into couture shapes in the blue-collar color,” the designer (who also donned blue-toned hair) said of the collection’s prominent color. Metallic and oilslick hues added to the homage in lurex moire and iridescent technical organza.
Mai continued to dive into couture shapes, drawing continual reference from Cristóbal Balenciaga’s sculptural shapes (à la new takes on his signature full-skirted looks) as well as new takes on Yves Saint Laurent’s Dior trapeze silhouettes with his Hurel Paris-backed fabrications.
The look: A mix of sensuality and volume.
Quote of note: “We worked on these pants all season to get the perfect wide-legged silhouette,” he said of the tailored trapeze lot, which included sheer tulle gowns. “It’s about being sexy without necessarily being all about the waist,” he said of the see-through numbers and “sack-like” sensual bias-cut slips.
Key pieces: Trapeze trousers and tulle dresses; blue and white tweedy full skirts, shorts and fabric-blocked tops; signature full-skirted, voluminous gowns in a range of new fabrications; drapey slipdressing.
The takeaway: Mai’s sentimental spring collection offered a fluid, dressy balance between sensuality and signature debutante.
