Matthew Adams Dolan (Q3338)
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Matthew Adams Dolan is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Matthew Adams Dolan |
Matthew Adams Dolan is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
Matthew Adams Dolan was back on the NYFW schedule after a one-season absence. In the time he’s been away, his look—curved blazer, catty skirt, coy ’tude—has become a popular, if not the popular, one for a vast subset of Millenial and Gen Z women. Rather than harden his grip on trendiness for Spring 2020, Adams Dolan loosened up, cutting a freer, more uninhibited look. He did it with the use of linen for lightness and lots of tiny pintucks that nipped shorts up to the hip or turned the sleeves of poet dresses into ballooning shapes. Some models, with their platform Teva sandals and hair wrapped in string, seemed almost like prepster mermaids dredged up from the shores of Martha’s Vineyard.That’s just the paradox of wild and proper Adams Dolan would like—I think—too. He called this collection a “new American folktale” after the show, explaining that the striped blazers that imply drug rugs are actually a reference to rowing attire, now cut to be a bit threadbare around the edges. Denim, the heart of his brand, was imagined as a pleated front dress or continued in languid, long suiting. For those who have followed the young talent since his graduation from Parsons, those sloped blazers and pooling trousers will recall his earliest work—you know, the stuff that put him on Rihanna’s radar?Of course, Rihanna has her own collection now, which is also, curiously, about denim blazers and catty skirts. In differentiating himself from his superstar muse, Adams Dolan has also freed himself to evolve, try new things, and tap into a new kind of Americana—one that’s learning, growing, and changing. Let’s hope he doesn’t skip another season; it’s too much fun to think where he could take his collection next.
12 September 2019
What’s American fashion all about anyway? It’s a question designers will be grappling with this New York Fashion Week as ideas of profitability, creativity, patriotism, globalism, scale, and inclusivity go head to head in a jam-packed week of shows. Matthew Adams Dolan managed to squeeze lots of big ideas about Americana into his succinct 27-piece collection today. “A lot of American fashion has been about ideas of democracy, with people like Claire McCardell looking at ways that were easy for women to wear clothes,” he said backstage after the show, explaining he was drawn to the functionality of McCardell’s practical, unfussy garments.Adams Dolan’s take on McCardell-style utility might not seem like everywoman or everyman clothing at first, with pants trailing on the floor and denim overall-style vests holding up an extra jacket that flows behind the wearer like a train, but there’s a lot bubbling under the surface. This collection’s colors were part ’90s activewear neons and partSteel Magnoliaspunched-up pastels, coming together in silhouettes that looked pulled from ’50s couture tailoring, ’90s ravers, and ’80s school girls. There was all-black denim for summer goths, swishy pink skirts for pop princesses, and cargo pants with teensy pockets right at the knees for dudes obsessed with workwear but without the need for a hammer hook. Models either wore Reebok kicks or pointy, prim pumps. All together, the collection was everywoman or everyman in that its references were pulled from just about every corner of the American diaspora—and without a single print!What’s more, Adams Dolan’s Spring collection nodded to how the people America idolizes right now are dressing. Kim Kardashian West has made acid green blazers her summer ’18 staple. Bad-taste icons like Justin Bieber wear so-bad-it’s-incredible color combinations such as sea-foam and pea green on the regular. Rihanna, Adams Dolan’s longstanding superstar muse and super-fan, has turned oversize dressing into a rarified art, concealing and revealing her figure in workwear-inspired shapes. So maybe this is one answer to what American fashion is all about—something inspired by many that gels into one. E pluribus unum, right?
7 September 2018
Since the days of Charles James, the idea of the crazy, cryptic couturier has captivated audiences. It has become such a compelling narrative that Paul Thomas Anderson turned the balancing act of passion and obsession into the theme of his latest film,Phantom Thread. And yet, backstage after Matthew Adams Dolan’s show, one was struck by the fact that a craftsman can be at once quite revelatory and also quite stable. Adams Dolan can cut a garment like few others—this season’s swing-backed blazers were a testament to the sheer brilliance of his hand—and yet he is still, somehow, one of the most unassuming, subtle designers in the market.Perhaps because of his earnestness and openness, this season felt particularly incongruous. Adams Dolan is at his best when he offers surreal, subcultural takes on daily items—the shrugged-off-the-shoulder jean jacket or the quilt-cum-coat are two of his most memorable examples. Inspired by the relationship between high fashion and the mass market, his Fall collection edged into the less-than-inspiring territory of pink plaids, car coats, felt, and scoop neck tops in businesswoman gray. Reebok sneakers and swimming hemlines only stirred up notions of silhouettes seen elsewhere.Backstage, the designer said you can’t show a whole runway of just denim, the material that transformed him from a Parsons student into a Rihanna favorite. But why not? Adams Dolan’s black denim shrunken skirtsuits worn cinched tightly over plaid shirts are truly special; so special, in fact, they could have been tweaked and studied over more than just two looks. The same goes for those aforementioned swing-back jackets, each an easy, wearable feat of construction. As a young designer, Adams Dolan has already seen so much success thanks to his connection with Rihanna, but he’d be wise to develop his singular vernacular before trying to be all things to all people. Sometimes a little bit of crazy-focused couturier can make all the difference.
9 February 2018
Since the days of Charles James, the idea of the crazy, cryptic couturier has captivated audiences. It has become such a compelling narrative that Paul Thomas Anderson turned the balancing act of passion and obsession into the theme of his latest film,Phantom Thread. And yet, backstage after Matthew Adams Dolan’s show, one was struck by the fact that a craftsman can be at once quite revelatory and also quite stable. Adams Dolan can cut a garment like few others—this season’s swing-backed blazers were a testament to the sheer brilliance of his hand—and yet he is still, somehow, one of the most unassuming, subtle designers in the market.Perhaps because of his earnestness and openness, this season felt particularly incongruous. Adams Dolan is at his best when he offers surreal, subcultural takes on daily items—the shrugged-off-the-shoulder jean jacket or the quilt-cum-coat are two of his most memorable examples. Inspired by the relationship between high fashion and the mass market, his Fall collection edged into the less-than-inspiring territory of pink plaids, car coats, felt, and scoop neck tops in businesswoman gray. Reebok sneakers and swimming hemlines only stirred up notions of silhouettes seen elsewhere.Backstage, the designer said you can’t show a whole runway of just denim, the material that transformed him from a Parsons student into a Rihanna favorite. But why not? Adams Dolan’s black denim shrunken skirtsuits worn cinched tightly over plaid shirts are truly special; so special, in fact, they could have been tweaked and studied over more than just two looks. The same goes for those aforementioned swing-back jackets, each an easy, wearable feat of construction. As a young designer, Adams Dolan has already seen so much success thanks to his connection with Rihanna, but he’d be wise to develop his singular vernacular before trying to be all things to all people. Sometimes a little bit of crazy-focused couturier can make all the difference.
9 February 2018
American horror stories are shaping up to be a key theme at New York Fashion Week. At Matthew Adams Dolan, the young Australian-American designer mixed the serenity of Bruce Weber photography with the pristine cynicism ofAmerican Psychofor a collection that pushed him into new territory. Yes, the denim that fans (including Rihanna) know and love continued—here in the form of stiff A-line minis and long, tailored blazers—but that was just one note of many within the collection. Workwear, ever a staple of Adams Dolan’s oeuvre, was replaced with a new prep-gone-naughty spirit. It’s not necessarily a new flavor in fashion, but it served Adams Dolan well to expand his ready-to-wear offering.In that realm, there were myriad options for men and women. Rich cable-knits came as asymmetrical cardigans and wrap skirts, though the most practical option was probably the rose turtleneck worn as part of a denim skirt suit. Shirting was expanded into billowing stripes with elongated sleeves that trailed past models’ fingertips. It’s convenient in our dystopian age that Adams Dolan’s initials spell outmad, which was used as a logo and a slogan readingMAD USAon boxer labels and, in a particularly Gvasalia-esque moment, embroidered on the back collar of an anorak. It’s true, some of the subversions this time around felt like a rehash of trends we’ve seen elsewhere, but you can’t fault Adams Dolan for moving past his oversize denim obsession. As a colleague said before the show, it was hard to imagine those older pieces in the real world; how can you spend a day with your pants sliding under your sneakers? No such problems here. Those couture cut blazers, with sloped sleeves and a roomy build, could take you from work to dinner to a date with ease.
9 September 2017
If the name Matthew Adams Dolan is familiar, it’s because the Australian-American designer is behind practically every cool denim look Rihanna has worn in the past two years. That type of attention has transformed Dolan from an unknown Parsons MFA grad into one of the buzziest up-and-comers in New York, but the hype doesn’t seem to faze Dolan much. For Fall 2017 he’s found unexpected ways to develop the workwear silhouettes that first put him on the map.The jumping-off point, Dolan said, was the idea of taking what are typically outdoorsy, utilitarian fabrics and making them into inside outfits. Dolan got to his world-of-interiors theme through John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s ‘bed-in for peace,’ explaining that in times of chaos, a sense of comfort goes a long way. His mother is a lifelong quilter, which inspired the quilts strapped to the backs of garments (some spliced with arm or head holes, others affixed to pants) that gave models the look of comfortable, millennial angels. His popular outsize silhouettes made a return, with pants billowing around feet and jackets hitting mid-thigh, though there was also a contingent of shrunken looks that Bad Gal RiRi and other pop stars are likely to love, including a straight-up sexy micro-denim jacket tugged off-the-shoulder. This lovely mélange of colors, textures, and shapes was underscored with a single slogan tee that readremember the ladies, a phrase picked out of a 1776 letter from Abigail Adams to her husband.Visitors to his New York Fashion Week Men’s show—technically the collection is unisex—were greeted by a gaggle of diverse men and women lounging in the center of the floor. Some hugged serenely, others had their eyes shut, blanketlike clothing wrapped snuggly around them. After weeks of global chaos, I’d bet that more than a few of Dolan's guests would have liked to get down there and join his dreamers.
3 February 2017