Hed Mayner (Q4257)
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Hed Mayner is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Hed Mayner |
Hed Mayner is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
Hed Mayner put his clothes on a pedestal. Not the slightly raised runway at his intimate show this morning, so intimate you could feel the clothes grace your knees as models came and went, but the wooden platforms he wrapped with leather belts around their feet. “It starts with this pedestal and from there it’s about the volume,” he said backstage.Mayner is so consistent and with such a distinct point of view that you wouldn’t believe he designed against instinct this season by merely looking at this collection. His work is often about proportion, often with an extra wide, ever so slightly sloped shoulder and a hefty, grounding bottom. But this season it was about textiles: British plaids and luxe Italian wools, lightweight Oxfords and plush polyester herringbones.Except that Mayner’s collection was still about proportion. “There is this idea of attacking the proportion, from an angle that is more related to textile and from that textile creating the shape,” he explained. The level of ingenuity with which Mayner approached his lineup was spellbinding, and that the result was so true to form only reinforced why his shows draw a tight but passionate crowd of passionate followers. Mayner is surprisingly introspective considering how many of his counterparts, often at larger, more prominent brands, are in conversation with his work.He creased the herringbones to create a nonchalant silhouette, which he shaped slimmer than his usual tailoring. He cut papery cotton shirting to create ample and generous shirts, some slit down the back with yokes in the front and others with traditional or criss-crossed plackets, all of which he cinched with oversized shirt cuffs worn as a peplum-cum-cummerband. Mayner also bonded portions of these same shirts with stiffer fabrics to force them to hold shape in some places, most often around the chest. The result of this last experiment, together with the rubbery colorful prints he used to harden easy cotton T-shirts here and there (“color should serve a purpose, not just be decorative”) was, in his words, “statuesque.”Such was the case also with a run of jackets in British and Italian suiting fabrics, which Mayner forced to cocoon around the body by removing their collars and lapels then filling that space by extending the neckline to crash against the neck. This caused the arms and shoulders to pull forward, an effect exaggerated by a top button placed high and the front bodices falling diagonally over each other.
“Active repose,” is what the designer’s collection notes aptly called this idea. Think of it as Hed Mayner’s moderncontrapposto.
22 June 2024
All of a sudden, Hed Mayner found himself putting his fall collection together in a time of war. “War was always something that your father and grandfather talked about,” he said during a showroom visit. “Now, for the first time, it’s my generation.”Mayner and his team persisted, focusing on a new tack for him: the classics, and tailoring in particular. The designer said he found it intimidating at first because he had never lived in an environment with easy access to stores, let alone vintage shops. But in the end, he discovered that distance actually gave him a form of freedom.“I felt like I could deform things without breaking any rules,” he said. In lieu of modern mannequins, he and his studio padded out a vintage dummy and made body molds out of foam. The idea, he added, was to make clothes that look like there had already been a body inside them, as if the wearer were donning someone else’s proportions. “I wanted to have it be like 3D without cutting too much,” he said, noting that he tries not to work around themes and mood boards. “There’s no reference or history or culture, there’s the thing itself, and you work inside,” he said.As journalists gathered round, the designer gamely played model, slipping on a chocolate herringbone peacoat and turning around to show how the back seam stands out. A gray four-way stretch fabric was printed with pinstripes to look like suiting, but actually takes on “a human form” when cut into an overcoat or trousers. “It lets me wear tailoring without feeling that I belong to a certain group or have a certain status in society,” the designer observed. Speaking of status, his ongoing collaboration with Reebok brings a reworking of a classic, ’90s-era brutalist sneaker.True to form, trousers skewed ample and fluid. For shirting, Mayner found himself studying vintage Brooks Brothers styles. “I’m obsessed with diving into something, changing it completely, but keeping it as it is,” he said. One result was an almost crunchy striped shirt in a bonded cotton-aluminum fabric that holds its wrinkles artily. That one may resonate with loyalists, but in a seriously strong coat season Mayner showed that he can hold his own.
18 January 2024
Arguably one of the most conceptual thinkers in fashion right now, Hed Mayner has, in recent seasons, explored shape, proportion, and contrast as a sculptor might, stripping away concerns like status to get to the essence of clothes, material and cut. He takes a certain pride, rightly, in using a small vocabulary to make a big statement.That process lets him make interesting points in places others tend to overlook. This season, the space is what he affectionately calls “boring clothes”—a dad’s shirt, a brother’s V-neck, a grandfather’s pinstripe trousers, a boyfriend’s pajamas. Taking something utterly familiar and coaxing out a new personality is the whole point.“It’s a different kind of manipulation,” the designer said in an interview. “The clothes are linked to a technique that’s not high tech, but rather, humble.”His research resulted in some striking pieces, like a shirt in a wrinkled, crunchy memory fabric that lets it fly out in the back. That was not a show trick: Mayner explained that he structured the material with Lurex and metallic netting to give the shirt the wearability of a jacket, and to give the wearer the freedom to shape it as they wish. Another shirt was, in fact, two stitched together and cut so that it has no front or back.Mayner loves toying with oversized cuts and proportions, so he can always be counted on to offer up architectural coats with sweep and swagger. A crisp gray trench was shown with trousers as light as gum wrapping, in silver Tyvek; a winning safari-style windbreaker paired with pajama-like trousers with shirt-cuff ankles, and a chocolate leather overcoat that whispered stealth luxury was grounded by a pressed slipper that, like the ankle boots and moccasins, was made in partnership with Quoddy, the Maine heritage footwear company.Within a lineup of strong statement pieces, Mayner’s biggest hits were the utility jackets he likened to both “a home” and “luggage.” “It’s a part of the body, in a functional way. There’s something about having the garment as your only possession—you don’t need to carry any other accessories,” he offered, explaining how their oversized proportions and big pockets reflect how he relates to sportswear: They are, simply, “a life jacket.”That idea will no doubt spawn countless imitations, but in Mayner’s hands, it delivers something new even before it is put on a moving body and goes somewhere else entirely.
24 June 2023
In the show notes for his fall collection, Hed Mayner slipped in an eye-catching turn of phrase: “A little bit bent.” It referred as much to the actual construction of the silhouettes, which were notably more fitted—and feminized—than usual, as to his willingness to embrace the dings and quirks of experimentation. The opening look, a smart double-breasted jacket, neatly summed up the process: it appears slightly tugged but is, upon closer inspection, remarkably tailored, cut without curves and then bent into shape. And while it looks like flannel, the piece is made of a bonded, layered jersey that gives it a certain thickness and volume.“The process was about removing everything—status, new ideas—and transforming something from head to toe, with the idea of mistakes that happen but you keep,” the designer explained backstage before the show. That back-to-basics mindset led Mayner to approach the collection as if the pieces had been borrowed, passed down, or worn by people of different ages and generations. Placed on an adult, a child’s tuxedo becomes “clothing-as-second-skin”—an idea echoed by the actual stockings models wore as head coverings.The designer stretched his versatility by pairing a sharply-cut, satin-lapel tuxedo jacket with the flowy, cropped trousers he favors, finished with oversized shoes—new vocabulary for him, yet familiar in their Chaplin-esque proportions. Elsewhere, he tweaked the classics by turning what might have been traditionally tailored outerwear into sleeveless coats or a cropped jacket and skirt ensemble. A voluminous suit jacket was pressed and crinkled to narrower proportions.Even so, Mayner’s base is partial to his ample, enveloping constructions, like multi-pocket parkas and cargos that feel “like home.” They will have plenty to choose from, from slouchy parkas to oversized peacoats in wool or leather and plush-looking shearlings.
19 January 2023
In his collection notes, Hed Mayner made it clear that he doesn’t do “overwrought statements of seasonal quirk.” Rather, season after season he revisits scaled-up proportions, honing them as a sculptor might.“I started by trying to build a silhouette that has a strong contact between front and back, and just being this two-dimensional look with a contrast,” the designer offered backstage. That translated into parkas, duffle coats, and jackets that looked straightforward enough from the front, until you caught the decadence of an open back.The comforts of home were the throughlines, with spoons repurposed into sculptural drop earrings and antique bed linens sourced from fleas in Paris and Tel Aviv that Mayner stonewashed, starched, and sewed into shirts.Though they were pretty, the designer said that poetry wasn’t his point. “I wanted to have elements that just look collected or found and applied on yourself, like diving into your sheets and staying there,” the designer said of a square-cut shirt in cotton embroidered with openwork garlands.Those tops and a slouchy-shouldered knit with trailing threads offered plenty of crossover appeal, though Mayner said such considerations were secondary to exploring proportions and, notably, stripping away notions of gender and status. Instead, he wanted to propose ideas of “clothes as accessories.” Even so, there were status contenders here. The midnight blue blouson springs to mind. So does a denim bomber. And, espectically, that leather aviator jacket.
23 June 2022
Hed Mayner’s fall collection exists in the space “between despair and ultimate hope,” he said on a video call. “Well, maybedespairis the wrong word,” Mayner quickly chased. “But I am thinking about the space between you and the garment, layered and protected…you are in a bubble.” Mayner speaks like a poet and he designs like one too, operating instinctively and emotionally, more interested with how a garment will feel on the skin, move about the body, and imprint on a life than how cool it looks or how hype-y it is. It’s this humanity that has garnered Mayner fans across the world, some in fashion and some far outside it, who plug in to the gentle ideas he pushes each season.For fall, the sloped shoulder is the big story. “It’s not just about a refined jacket,” he said, “it’s about injecting an energy, a vibe.” The vibe here is one of movement—clothes are moving, dripping down off shoulders, pooling around the ankles, or cinching up at the waist, tucking in under heels and into flat buckled shoes. Quilted faux-leather scarves and squares of Liberty fabric are hung around necks or clipped onto lapels and belt loops—just imagine them swirling through the streets of Paris.In a season of statement coats, Mayner’s will leave a big mark; double-breasted wool styles and clever Macintoshes promise artful protection against the elements. A first foray into prints, done with Liberty fabrics, is a counter to the almost-businessman spirit of hiswideblazers. In sensitive pastels, the quilted pants and filmy button-downs look like something “maybe from your grandmother, or something American, even though it’s a British company.” Mayner’s clothing evades provenance like this: He is Israeli, working in Paris, thinking in a way that’s not really of a place. But it’s certainly of our time. His clothing offers a gentle reprieve from stress and worry. Wouldn’t it be nice, lovely, refreshing to settle into to a Mayner puff of jacket?
19 January 2022
“It’s about the idea of protection, of being on the move, traveling,” said Hed Mayner on a Zoom call. “Dynamism. Transforming clothes into objects. Plenty of pockets, to make outfits feel like home.” Indeed. The humongous volumes rendered in robust canvas and hardy cotton drill that dominate this collection can be easily associated with sheltering carapaces. It seems that they’re carrying you with them, more than the other way around.Mayner shot the look book one hour outside of Paris, in what looks like a dry, deserted no-man’s-land. “It could be anywhere. I didn’t want to reference nature or some specific landscape,” he said quite matter-of-factly. “Clothes are what they are, there isn’t any double meaning.” Yet there’s a heroic streak in Mayner’s visuals. Against an open sky, his creations stand upright like sculptures—totemic, excessive, and prodigious. A vast racerback is covered in “a paranoia of pockets,” according to the press notes. Cargo pants and trousers are gigantic, falling in wide pools of fabric at the feet. A moleskin suit would’ve made David Byrne’s look like kidwear.Mayner’s approach is apparently straightforward, or at least this is what he wants you to believe: “I try to avoid stereotypes—this isn’t workwear, what I’m trying to create is something essential. These clothes are just silhouettes; they aren’t either male or female. They’re functional, protective, like dynamic cocoons,” he stated. Yet his uncompromising, almost brutal design vigor feels rather like the proud, generous gesture of a romantic.
23 June 2021
Hed Mayner feels like he has a handle on things, despite a broken leg. If the past year has taught us anything, he pointed out, it’s that there’s beauty to be found in flexing to the moment.The dynamic between inside and outside—the need to isolate on one hand and what he sees on the streets of Paris or Tel Aviv, on the other—led him to paring things down and meandering through the possibility of line or the language of fabric. “Tailoring can take you into a process where you obsess over the perfect jacket. What I’m trying to do is keep something askew,” the designer noted in a Zoom interview. Comfort dressing in slouchy, cozy fabrics was already Mayner’s home turf. This season, he’s expanded that sensibility and reframed it with ample yet tailored silhouettes and more traditional materials, like fluid Italian wools and English tweeds. For the first time, he ventured into double-faced fabrics, for example in a military-inspired coat that, thanks to a simple slit in back, can also be worn as a cape (a quilted puffer reprised that idea too).He also went to town on proportion, stripping away lapels, elongating tops, dropping hems, and toying with asymmetry, bell sleeves, major shoulders, and trousers that sit high on the waist. Those might be tucked into a long, slouchy boot or quite simply cropped above the ankle, judo-style, and paired with a big-buckled shoe. The effect was often sculptural, and warm hues of ivory, rust, camel, butter, and olive green added to the feeling of gentle ease.Mayner said that his loyalists tend to pick a total look, then break it down and make it their own. One of his pastimes is following them to see what they’ve come up with. Come fall, they’ll have a lot to play with.
21 January 2021
Looking at Hed Mayner’s fall collection, you get the sense that—despite all the attention that comes with an LVMH Prize for Young Fashion Designers—he’s still able to preserve his headspace. Working from Tel Aviv helps, he acknowledged; he can concentrate on what he’s doing and dip in and out of Paris as he wishes.“It’s just the idea of protection, I guess,” he said backstage before the show. “I want these men to feel really good.” To that end, he blurred the classic boundaries of menswear with loose, elongated shapes in neutral shades of beige and lime. Ovoid shirts offset boxy, well-cut double-breasted jackets in traditional English herringbone. Up-size suits channeled Joseph Beuys’sFelt Suitand shades of Talking Heads, though the soundtrack was a Bowie cover. Knits lent themselves particularly well to the cocooning effect, in buttonless cardigans or turtlenecks with an integrated scarf. The jumpsuits looked ideal for winter days when you never have to leave the house, they were harder to envision on the streets. The designer proved himself deft at layering, and some of the outerwear, like a caramel blanket coat with red and black stripes (not to mention the pearl earrings worn with it) had clear crossover appeal. Fans will be able to lean in closer on what he’s doing when his latest installation opens in March at most of Dover Street Market’s outposts.
16 January 2020