Tomas Maier’s take on fashion isn’t about creating the latest trends, instead, the German-born designer focuses on crafting timeless clothes that women and men will want to wear season after season. For autumn/winter17, Maier’s desire to transcend trends resulted in a thoughtful and highly curated collection that felt both classic and contemporary. Showing both his women’s and men’s collection together, he chose to hone in on tailoring techniques with an emphasis on a strong shoulder that was set from the show’s opening look – a bottle green turtle neck with exaggerated round shoulders, paired with coordinating jodhpurs worn by Eva Herzigova. The power shoulder continued to appear throughout the collection but in different forms, squared off on jackets and coats, angular on blazers and jumpsuits and raised and rounded on dresses and blouses.
Statement outerwear also featured heavily, capes, leather jackets, razor-sharp trenches and shaggy goat-hair coats – these came in a range of hues; mustard yellow, amber and beige. These outerwear options demonstrated a cohesiveness between the men’s and women’s collections with borrowed-from the-boys tailoring elements appearing in tuxedo jackets and masculine double breasted coats. There were plenty of daywear staples too, reinvented shirtdresses cut from stiff fabrics and belted at the waist, shift dresses with structured pencil skirts and Forties-style midi dresses in dusty hues of yellow, pink and blue with statement balloon sleeves. Retro sweetheart cuts dresses in stripes and polka dots felt relevant and romantic with a vintage charm.
Maier’s biggest surprise came towards the end of the show when he set out a series of incredible evening gowns in gleaming metallic hues of gunmetal, gold and pewter, proving that he really can do it all. Post-show the designer remarked that he doesn’t design with a specific woman in mind, but focuses more on the designs themselves which perhaps explains why they are so timeless. His approach to creating luxury fashion that won’t be shelved after a season shows his desire to craft legacy pieces that are beautiful, high quality and timeless – something we believe is well worth the investment.
Here we share our ten favourite looks from the show.
