admin Designer Maisie Schloss is living that bi-coastal life. She’s based in Los Angeles, but the spring collection from her label, Maisie Wilen, was released digitally as part of New York Fashion Week. The lineup was a clever ode to Schloss’s home base, but there’s something intrinsically New York about her point of view.
This season, the designer ventured into “fresh, clean cut daywear,” folding cotton workwear styles into her otherwise knit-heavy lineup. The pieces were printed with nods to Los Angeles: Trippy images of coyotes (“they’re everywhere,” said Schloss), graphic palm trees, and even online-sourced fan-art from Golden Age Hollywood stars. To continue the show-biz theme, Schloss visited film supply stores and turned materials such as silicone sand, plaster, fishing line, and angel wings into dresses and skirts. This scrappiness speaks to the New York in Schloss, as does the styling of her clothes—this cast of models looks straight out of the Lower East Side.
“My work plays on how viewing something on a photograph versus seeing it in real life alters your perspective,” Schloss said, explaining the way this season’s prints wrapped and warped the body with her playful, hyper-digital approach. There’s something meta—and slightly amusing—about discussing how images warp our perspective and understanding of things while previewing Schloss’s latest collection over Zoom. The clothes photographed for this lookbook definitely exist, but are those in the images real? Time to stop asking questions. Ceci n’est pas une Maisie Willen robe.
