Maria McManus saw the movie this season. Especially Il Deserto Rosso
, 1964 Michelangelo Antonioni’s first color film. “It was very beautiful,” recalls McManus, but it also touched on themes that the designer tackles every day in his work. “It was in the Italian 1964 days that it [was] industrializing and everyone was wearing nice suits and trying to get ahead and make money and think it was all great. And Monica Vitti [in the film Starring] completely overwhelmed and hopeless in this disjointed industrialized world – I feel like 60 years later we are doing the same thing”
Despite the film’s bleak outlook, the resulting collection is confident, shall we say optimistic, featuring a palette of peony pinks underpinned by rich chocolate browns. She found a movie poster with an abstract pink foreground, with Monica Vitti and another actor standing in the background. “Most of the images you find in the movie are red, [but from this poster] we took rosa instead of rosso
.” (Rosso is Italian for red.) Stretchy, semi-sheer ribbed knits were transformed into breezy dresses and skirts. On the models, they appear to be wearing a petticoat underneath, but it is actually part of a skirt. “The fabric we make is a thicker gauge on the top and then gets lighter on the bottom, so you can get a sheer look without showing off your panties to the world.” For the less down-to-earth, crochet A black oversized dropped-shoulder polo-neck shirt, paired with bike shorts from McManus, and a white slip dress.
Suiting is one of McManus’ bright spots, and this season, a white jacket cut from FSC-certified viscose in Japan is baggy and has exaggerated shoulders— —she added a button under the lapel so it could be worn “closed,” creating an interesting asymmetrical silhouette. Basic T-shirts are now made from % recycled materials. “Ideally, the entire collection would be made from this fabric,” she said. McManus has always been proud to show the way her clothes are finished on the inside, and this season she had a lot of shots of clothes worn inside out, or with belts showing. “We try to spend as much time indoors as we do outdoors.”
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