Maisie Wilen (Q3253)
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Maisie Wilen is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Maisie Wilen |
Maisie Wilen is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
A best-seller is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it brings in some good ol’ cash flow and helps build a label’s cultural cache, but on the other, it can cause fatigue. Maisie Schloss has had somewhat of a hit on her hands with her perforated knits for her Maisie Wilen label, but their popularity also had the designer in limbo between exploring new things and delivering to her customers. “I started to feel a little angsty towards them the last couple of seasons because they have been so popular,” said Schloss, calling from her apartment in California. “They were inhibiting me from showing new things because people were focused on them, while I’m like, ‘Hey, look at this other stuff I made!’ but this season I’ve fallen in love with the fabric all over again.”This rekindling was provoked by Schloss switching up her design methodology this season. This is a designer known for her URL-heavy design vernacular, with digital prints and optical illusions often taking the spotlight in collections. “Previously, I’ve been almost entirely digital,” said Schloss, explaining that everything from her sketching to her silhouette development was mostly done digitally. “Once it was all finalized on the computer I’d make the actual things, it was all very calculated,” she continued. There is a practicality to working that way, but Schloss is right to underscore how this approach often leads to a more neatly packed result, which is efficient but not always the most exciting.Instead, this season Schloss closed her laptop and ventured into the streets of Los Angeles to scour for deadstock materials, exchanging her meticulously pre-planned lineups for a more improvised and material-led design approach. She wrapped the body in raffia and threaded vintage beads together to create funky separates that hung away from the body like bejeweled fishing nets, and took her existing fabrics—such as that famous perforated jersey—and gave them a sense of novelty with winding and twisting draping.“It feels like fine art, observing an image and creating it simultaneously,” said Schloss of her new methodology, which gave her collection a sense of dimension. “I was like, 'I have to log off for a minute,’” the designer joked. Good thing she did.
6 September 2024
The internet is a scary place. It can also be a very bleak one, which is something that designer Maisie Schloss was confronted by as she worked on her fall lineup. “A huge through line of this brand has been studying digital culture and observing and analyzing the way we live online,” said Schloss, calling in from Los Angeles. “But with how heavy times are right now, being online seems particularly bleak,” she added. “I just needed the collection to feel optimistic.”So what happens when a URL-native brand cuts off its Wi-Fi and goes offline? “I touched some grass,” Schloss said, mostly metaphorically. The exercise led to a tightly edited collection that unveiled a more demure and mature side of Maisie Willen. “I was thinking of my customer’s evolution and where she’s at,” said Schloss. “I want to cater to the person who is growing alongside the brand and stick to my ethos of making basics for the maximalist.” This last thought rang true in Schloss’s printed featherweight jersey dresses and boatneck tops with shirred side seams at the waist. A sheer blouse with diagonal velvet details and a pair of cutoff tailored shorts felt like Schloss was breaking new ground: It was an idea worth building on.Young brands and their designers are currently dealing with the multibrand retailer landscape. For Schloss, this has meant looking to diversify her channels and not put all her eggs in one basket. This was a more commercial and straightforward collection for the designer. While one missed her more crafty and playful materializations, which often added context and visual depth to her collections, this was a lineup that will offer her customer some worthwhile mileage. Confirmation that, every once in a while, it’s worth it to go outside and touch some grass.
10 February 2024
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.
9 September 2023
Maisie Schloss of Maisie Wilen is another designer who decided to stay off the runways this season, opting for a digital release. It feels fitting, then, that she discussed her latest collection over Zoom. For fall, after all, she was looking at the contrasts between digital and tactile.“This season I was really interested in continuing to study digital imagery by placing it alongside craft and industrial materials,” she said. The lookbook opened with a paper bag as a dress, and looks were accessorized with paper ties, rubber band jewelry, and even an inflatable packaging boa. Literal as it sometimes was, Schloss was onto an interesting idea. “These two things have so many juxtapositions, they bring out the familiar in the foreign, and even the rudimentary in the pristine,” she said.Schloss’s goal was to decontextualize and to “make things look foreign.” This she did by placing classic white briefs on the runway next to outer garments, making a dress out of soccer balls, and applying what she called digitally rendered “uncanny faces” onto bags and oversized tees. Digital imports into the IRL world included stock images of offices as a repeat graphic, grass and corrugated metal prints, and, most humorously, a repeat of the classic placeholder text “lorem ipsum,” which many folks will be seeing for the first time in the world outside their computer screens.An optic print was exposed over the uncanny faces, making them look like a glitch; this same graphic was exported onto brushed wool sweaters, cleverly making the digital as tactile as possible. Schloss offered true menswear styles this season, too. She said that men wear her clothes all the time anyways, so this was more about making it official and offering the right grading and sizing—she joins the ranks of designers like Peter Do and Simone Rocha who launched men’s last season with similar ideas.Wilen has made technology and imagery her personal brand language, and juxtaposing her digital nativeness with the analogue and tactile is something worth expanding on.
14 February 2023
In case the green-screen runway didn’t give it away, Maisie Wilen was thinking about CGI and special effects for her spring collection. “My design process is completely digital, so I wanted to think about ways that I would carry that digital process into clothes production,” she explained shortly before the show began. This inspiration was most directly referenced in the triangle and circle print known as Sierpinski triangle fractals, which help special-effects artists add their magic to movie scenes. Hari Nef opened the show wearing a body-hugging, long-sleeve maxi-gown in a black and gray print, and Ella Emhoff closed it in a green, black, and white print, complete with the so-called MoCap covering her head.Another print featured images of different kinds of lens flares, in a white-trimmed grid familiar to anyone who regularly uses Google Images search. Raglan-sleeve baby tees emblazoned with images of lens flares or “squeaky bubble faces” (“I wanted to show an exaggerated idea of what the final product of a CGI effect could be,” said Wilen) are sure to be great sellers. The bubble faces were also used to great effect on a short-sleeve shirt worn with a matching tie and matching trousers, part of Wilen’s new menswear. “I was seeing so many guys online wearing the clothes and looking great, so we are just making the offering official,” she said. “It’s all very fluid; all the guys’ clothes work on girls, but those clothes work on guys, and we played around with that for styling.”The label is also “known for going-out dresses, and I wanted to bring in more of those formal elements to the collection,” explained Wilen. It was in a long-sleeve white dress printed with an image of a water droplet flare, as well as a scoop-neck silk slip with an enlarged lens flare print, that created a beautiful watercolorish effect where the possibilities of Wilen’s interests shone most brightly.
14 September 2022
Maisie Wilen was designing for the metaverse long before the term entered the mainstream. A digital-first creative, she came of age at a moment when once fictional concepts like virtual and augmented reality became hard facts. The impact of that transition continues to reverberate through fashion, and with her inventive fall collection, Wilen offered a best case scenario of what the future may hold. A first of its kind holographic experience, it utilized Yahoo’s volumetric capture technology to transform models into towering muses modeled after characters from Monster High. Staring down spectators, laughing and twitching as they morphed into abstractions, they made an impression. Projections aren’t new, but the immersive nature of Wilen’s show—which was simultaneously revealed on an interactive website—made previous attempts seem like slide presentations.The spectacle was peak internet, but Wilen’s standout pieces demand IRL engagement; the average laptop can’t mimic the feel of the matte silver sequins that made their way onto trousers and trenches or capture the gloss of her new holographic vinyl. Still, she has faith in VR’s ability to convey a message. “There are the holograms, but there’s also a beautifully built site where you have the augmented reality versions,” she shared backstage. “You get to zoom in on them, beam them into your space to walk around them. It’s a level of engagement that we haven’t had with the live show previously.”Inspired by the increasingly blurry line between reality and fantasy and the moments of doubt it creates, Wilen sought to mystify her audience. “I wanted to delve into what could prompt the viewer to question their reality. The clothes have optical illusions, and we use a lot of textiles with visual effects,” she said. “It’s all presented in such a seamless way; because the viewers can feel that tension between what’s real and their digital lives.”One clear sign of real-world concerns were the many collaborations in the lineup. In addition to Yahoo, Wilen linked up with Keds for a line of sneakers embellished with spikes and studs. Partnerships with long-established brands are one way young designers amplify their reach, but Wilen was more interested in updating the classics. “I see a lot of Dad sneaker collaborations that are big and chunky, those are great, but these felt like such a perfect canvas,” she said. “[The design] gives such a feminine and sleek energy that we haven’t seen in a little while.
”Wiley has also been fine-tuning signatures like her perforated turtlenecks and patterned catsuits, updating them with splashy new color ways. She’s expanded into knitwear and denim, as well. Typically, designers cut their teeth on basics, but after creating viral party dresses, Wilen has worked backward to explore the most real thing of all: daywear staples you can wear to the office.
13 February 2022
Having a hit is a double-edged sword. Designers benefit from exposure when they create a viral item, but they can find themselves boxed in by it. Celebrities have helped make Maisie Wilen’s graphic prints and party dresses ubiquitous, but her spring 2022 show at the famous Boom Boom Room atop the Standard hotel veered away from those pieces. Instead, Wilen went equestrian, merging her interest in Derby style flourishes and the stylized uniforms of jockeys. Racing silks—the shirt, cap, and jacket worn by professional horsemen—rely on patterns to differentiate each rider. “The prints and colors represent the owner of the racehorse, and [each one] is registered,” explained Wilen backstage. “It’s a signature, much like our prints. I wanted to mix that with romanticism and the techie futuristic themes that exist in my work.”Wilen’s desire to delve into sport and romance led to exciting juxtapositions. Her opening look mixed a jockey-esque black and diamond blouse with lace leggings and heels covered in fuchsia rosettes. Each look that followed pushed things a step further, introducing provocations like lace tube tops, skintight dresses with heart-shaped cutouts, and skintight cropped jumpsuits with swirling prints. Wilen appeared to be testing limits—hers and those of her loyalists. The message was broadcast to the right people; clients like Charli XCX, Kilo Kish, and Devon Lee Carlson were all in attendance.The collection’s most interesting pieces had a sense of mischief; either their interpretation of boudoir dressing poked fun at stereotypical sexiness, or they exhibited a madcap clash of ideas. The tiered lace babydoll and matching hose worn by German pop star Kim Petras as she lip-synced through the room could have been pulled from Frederick’s of Hollywood, but the styling was so camp (as was Petras) it bordered on satire. Likewise, an off-the-shoulder top and miniskirt worn with white gloves brought to mind the tongue-in-cheek formalwear of the 1980s. Those looks, plus the many offbeat combinations, felt fresh. The cautious are likely to break things up and wear one idea at a time, but Wilen’s extrovert fans will be off to the races.
12 September 2021
In a pre-pandemic world, Maisie Wilen would celebrate her fourth collection with a New York Fashion Week show, but in 2021, virtual experiences are the norm. As such, Wilen decided to pay homage to the runway in a special video created to showcase her fall lineup. In the clip, models make their way down a liquid “catwalk” as a soundtrack of murmurs plays in the background mimicking an IRL audience’s reactions and the communal aspects of fashion month. The visuals, which see the cast walk on water in an array of prints, feel dreamlike, but the designer’s starting point was rooted in the current reality. “I was focused on comfort and adaptation,” said Wilen. “I was both responding to and rebuking the overwhelming call for comfort clothing within the industry. I’m known for going-out looks, and I was thinking, ‘What would be as special as a party look?’ while still responding to where my customer is today—outfits that can convert between quarantine and post-quarantine life.”Playing with those ideas meant juxtaposing formal and casual elements. Neon fabrics from retro windbreakers were repurposed into blazer and skirt sets ideal for the office or Zoom meetings. Reflective motocross-inspired pieces nodded to ’80s-style sportswear, while skintight catsuits and leggings kept body consciousness top of mind. Each piece was covered in the punchy prints that have become Wilen’s signature. The result of hours spent tweaking details in Photoshop and Illustrator, they typically range from geometric to psychedelic. This go-round, Wilens took a different approach, weaving together multiple fabrics to form patchwork patterns. In a section she dubbed “non-fiction,” collection details were scribbled across T-shirts and tops alongside QR codes. “It’s about the contrast of natural and tech imagery,” explained Wilen. “Scan the code on the garment, and it takes you to the product page on our website. They’re meant to be visually appealing and simultaneously snap the wearer back to reality.”In brighter times, Wilen’s vision for fall would be ideal for hopping from one club to the next, but in 2021 the clothes provide a bit of escapism. It’s easy to imagine dancing the night away in one of her crushed velvet crop tops or trippy lava-print trousers. While pieces like the jacquard overcoats and sporty suits seem destined for a Bella Hadid paparazzi stroll or related outdoor activity, the majority could be enjoyed at home.
Tangerine tie-dye sweatpants and zigzag-covered leggings would undoubtedly break the monotony of the work-from-home wardrobe.As a late-stage millennial or first-wave member of Generation-Z, depending on your chart, Wilen is uniquely primed to address young consumers’ wants. Those who grew up with Delia’s catalogs will feel a touch of nostalgia looking at her keyhole tops and the pastel-meets-neon color combinations that comprise the season’s palette. Even if you didn’t, the designs are sure to thrive online, where Instagram and TikTok updates are now the primary reasons to dress up. As forward-thinking as Wilen’s fashions are, she’s eager to ensure her customers feel exceptional no matter what the future holds. “[Our] customers gravitate to us for their special occasions,” she says. “They seem to be drawn to our dresses for their important moments, so I want to maintain that specialness, even if they just want to take a nice picture at home.”
15 February 2021
If anyone was primed for a digital season, it was Maisie Wilen. The limits of virality are tested every time the designer releases a collection and her online followers—a group that runs the gamut from Kim Kardashian West to Megan Rapinoe—begin experimenting with her looks. Spring’s socially distant show schedule had Wilen thinking about the effects of consuming clothing via the infinite scroll. “I wanted to study the effect of viewing images instead of having live interactions with design,” Wilen shared over Zoom. “Exploring how a garment’s design can manipulate or even idealize its image, I wanted to create clothes that forced the viewer to consider their perspective.”Wilen executed her concept by showing the contrast between the real and the artificial. Models posed against snowy backdrops of mountain ranges, the contradiction of their presence akin to a “control-V” paste. The pieces themselves were given hints of fantastical femininity with splashes of glitter on screen print blouses and dresses with trompe l’oeil embellishment. Fans of the psychedelic minidresses Wilen launched last year will find new riffs on the idea in long-sleeved mock turtleneck styles with suggestive cutouts or belly-baring versions held together with O-rings.The drawback of experiencing collections online is the absence of a tactile experience. Half the fun of clothing lies in the way it feels against the skin, and at present no computer can replicate that thrill. Wilen compensated for the loss by presenting textures bold enough to be understood without touch. The tinfoil crinkle of her silver segment was so apparent you could almost feel it. Likewise, the acid green textiles she used for baggy one-shoulder dresses and cropped jackets boasted a synthetic sheen obvious enough to be summed up in one word: plastics.Such inferences connect back to Wilen’s themes of image manipulation and online experience. As a designer who crafts her color palette via Photoshop and a member of the most plugged-in generation ever, she understands the importance of creating pieces that will resonate on social media, and her spring offering seems destined for Instagram. Some creators shy from the internet’s endorsement, but it’s part of the process for Wilen. “It plays into the idea of [clothes that are] sparkling, shiny, idealized,” she explained.
“The clothes photograph interestingly too, which connects to the idea of manipulation: clothes that may look different in person than in the images that we’re viewing.”After filters and Facetune, Wilen noticed that her clients were taking her designs into territory she never envisioned, changing the styling and creating a new sensibility. Originally intended as layering pieces, the perforated knits that she revisits for spring have already been given a remix by fans who have worn them as skintight head-to-toe sets that quickly became some of her most popular items. Shifts like those embody the difference between designer intent and digital interpretation that keeps Wilen on her toes. “It’s fun to see everyone’s creativity,” she says. “At least once a day now I’m tagged in a picture of a girl wearing a set, and I love that.”
15 September 2020
For its sophomore season, Maisie Wilen didn’t do things by halves—the brand took over a grand suite at the Hotel Le Meurice, moved all the furniture around, and let the party roll.“It really made sense with the timing of pre-fall, but coming from Yeezy we have such a community with menswear that I felt like a lot of family would be here now, even though we’re a women’s collection,” explained designer Maisie Schloss as models in marbled-print ensembles lounged in clusters around an intricately wrought fireplace. Schloss said she lets her prints guide her: She spends hours and days at her computer working on them until she gleans what form they should take next.“This collection was really my study in print on the body and how it affects everything,” she offered. She also loves fabric research and sourcing textile blends or latex from places that don’t typically supply clothing textiles. Sailing fabric, for example, found new life as a structured dress. A nylon blend brought a tech-y sheen to a bustier dress. Elsewhere, a classic, hourglass cocktail with a cantilevered bust managed to look Old Hollywood and futuristic all at once. A couple of headbands and a supple shoulder bag signaled a move into accessories.All of this is more pool party fare than officewear, and the Maisie woman (and the brand’s latest collaborations) are still coming into focus. But if things continue at this clip, this little brand could just become a force of nature.
15 January 2020
Maisie Wilen is a new ready-to-wear label from Chicago-born and Los Angeles–based Maisie Schloss. Its surname moniker—Schloss’s mother’s—is pronouncedwillenand notwylin, as one might phonetically lean. However, during her interview with Vogue Runway—held in advance of a friends-and-family preview at L.A.’s Night Gallery, before the pre-collection relocates to Paris for sales and press later this month—Schloss herself accidentally spoke it aswylin. She laughed, a little dismayed. She was nervous.Those nerves can melt away for the time being—this designer is onto something. Schloss’s first effort is accessible yet wild-side eclectic, offering a deft mix of art-school flare with disciplined calibration. It either soapily shimmers with ’90s-era euphoria for evening, or stands fortified with strong, salable sportswear for day. It’s not so common to see ideas that are uncompromisingly singular in aesthetic yet broad in appeal. Boiled down: These clothes are going to be popular.Schloss is a Parsons womenswear alum, and her expertise was furthered while working for Kanye West’s brand, Yeezy. In fact, West is Schloss’s investor. Her startup is reportedly his first venture in what will be a stable of labels—West approached Schloss at Yeezy about a year ago, and she began working independently, with his blessing and bank-rolling, last November. Through an email, West would only say “Maisie has always had a strong perspective and we’re truly pleased with her first collection.” He likely wanted to limit his commentary in order to let his protégé hold the spotlight (or let the designs speak for themselves; Schloss said West’s wife, Kim Kardashian West, would be “receiving a box”). It’d be interesting to hear, though, what West specifically saw in Schloss—he’s well-known for his style instincts (and, frankly, his trend-creating). There must have been something he noticed early.Back to the clothes: Polychrome jersey dresses with raw-cut necklines featured semi-animalistic prints, overlaid with biodynamic ovate blotting. “These are the backbone of the collection,” said Schloss. “The fabric can be printed beautifully. I was looking at gymnastics costumes, and the cut-outs that they have, which look so gestural on the body. And I was also looking at pictures of robotics.” Some tops had loops at the sleeve, which slipped over the middle finger, creating an extended and pointed arm.
“I think gymnastics and robots mirror my work well, in that I am systematic and regimented in how I operate, but the outcome looks organic.” Elsewhere, there were paint-by-numbers tees, which will come with Sharpies so that buyers can customize the pieces at will. Additionally, Schloss layered in hyper-cropped and cinched synthetic-coated cotton jersey jackets, perforated knits, and python-patterned separates. At retail, the highest price garment “maxes out around $1,000.”If there were shades of Demna Gvasalia’s Balenciaga, they weren’t problematic—Rihanna’s recent Fenty unveiling had those shades, too. Rather, this was Schloss’s distillation of the times at hand, and it’s not exactly an easily definable moment. Is fashion appropriate for political commentary? Is fashion too wasteful? Has fashion gotten too excessive? Does anyone even care about fashion anymore? Whatever one’s take, Maisie Wilen lands as a needed upper—it is serious design with a fun, tangy aftertaste. The outcome: clothes that one wants to wear and to see based solely ondesire, detached from the weightiness of the bigger picture. Perhaps this is what West found in Schloss: a fresh start.
6 June 2019