Bach Mai Fall 2024 Ready-to-Wear collection, runway looks, beauty, models, and reviews.
In advance of his fall show Bach Mai started documenting his show prep on Instagram, laying bare his struggles to create a collection in a mere 32 days with limited funds. Despite the designer’s good humor, it is a rather harrowing tale, the moral of which might be there’s no substitute for time. Time not only to make and remake garments, but time to have distance from the work and edit and refine it.
“After last season, which was a very personal collection , I wanted to re-center what I thought my brand was about… and there’s always this idea of a courtesan. I love this idea of the classic with a twist of fetish,” he said. Mai’s interest in transgressive females, who are both powerful and fragile, led him in the direction of Catherine Deneuve in, a story of a bourgeois woman’s “descent into depravity” as the show notes put it.
The beauty of some of the fabrics was undeniable. This is the first season the brand has shown coats, and one in a silver tinsel by Hurel, one of Mai’s backers, was especially effective, as was its opposite, made up in a garment-dyed washed nylon. Elements of Mai’s popular bomber were nicely applied to the jacket of a teal evening pantsuit to great effect, the pants in the second look were well cut, and the “X-ray” floral were well done.
“I want to give louche,” he declared on Instagram , yet all previous evidence suggests the designer is more closely aligned with two other L-words, luxe and liberality. Said Mai: “We have been the most diverse show in New York two seasons in a row, and we are hoping for a third.” With hope, next season he will have more time to work through these contradictions