There was a dainty maturity about Tomas Maier’s Spring/Summer 2014 collection, which showed in Milan on Saturday morning. It could have had something to do with the pleasant piano and the lovely birdsong tape that played in the background, but it was certainly heightened by the string of drapey dresses that flounced down the runway, each one more ruffled than the next. So much criss-crossing ruffle was going on, the collection almost had a whiff of old Comme des Garçons to it, albeit in a far more ladylike and somewhat naïvistic way. Maier played with material and volume.
His finest results came in the shape of two ankle-cut dresses, one in burned red plisse with feather embroidery and nipped in at the waist, which may not have been representative of the collection’s overall expressions, but still summed up what the designer does best. The season’s fondness for sticking stuff onto garments got the Bottega Veneta treatment in a segment of dresses with rather large gems attached to them, creating a sort of ornamented gypsy feel, which went hand-in-hand with the crafts vibes that ran through the rest of the collection.
