With a Bleecker Street store just opened and a Bal Harbour shop set for the beginning of next month, Tomas Maier’s eponymous brand is in overdrive. As busy as he is, he knows better than anyone that what we’re all after is a bit (make that a lot) more ease. Maier had exhibited an abiding affection for sweats and tracksuits since he relaunched the label last year, but his Resort offering seemed made with notions of comfort and off-time in mind more so than his previous outings. It was exceedingly easy to like.
Take the breezy dresses made from patchworks of black eyelet and lace with their sexy cuts and their well-considered linings, “so they feel good against the skin,” Maier said. Or, even better, the maxi dresses made from a lightweight polyester hailing from Japan that you’d swear was silk. They’ll do well in stores, as will a zip-front leatherette dress that looked deceptively like the real thing. There was plenty of real leather, too, in the form of brightly hued jackets and skirts with a hint of motocross about them. Color-blocked flag dresses cut as simply as smocks were also super-vivid. Denim and knits are TM perennials. He renewed the former by adding shredded trim to a jacket and a skirt, and he tweaked the latter with asymmetric cuts. A bright red cardigan worn backwards and twisted around the waist to button in front looked great over a matching cashmere dress.
Subtle, everyday luxury was the rule in his men’s collection, which was long on washed chinos in soft, gorgeous shades of blue and green, his best-seller drawstring-waist pants in paper corduroy or techy nylon, and plush cashmere sweaters. The one exception was a velvet sweat suit in electric green velvet with purple accent stripes. Luxe, yes, but only for the brave.
