Emerging Fashion Force Maisie Wilen Breaks All the New York Rules With Instagram Friendly Club Clothes

NEW YORK —  In her debut at New York Fashion Week, up-and-coming designer Maisie Schloss stayed with the club kid sensibility that got her noticed in the first place while adding a few looks with a jockey/equestrian theme. With her clientele champing at the bit to party, she may be onto something.

“[Going out] is when people have the most fun. There are no rules. You can wear what excites you the most,” Schloss tells the fashion website i-D. “I love that energy.”

The 27-year-old designer, whose fashion line is known as Maisie Wilen, has garnered a lot of attention recently for creating clingy psychedelic catsuits, dresses and skirts worn by such fashion darlings as Miley Cyrus, Lorde, and Saturday Night Live cast member Chloe Fineman. A protégé of Kanye West (she headed up the womenswear section of his Yeezy line), Schloss was recently nominated as an American Emerging Designer of the Year in the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s 2021 Fashion Awards.

Although her collection debuted at the Boom Boom Room atop the Standard Hotel during daylight hours, it is certainly meant for partying after dark and making Instagramable moments. Body-hugging perforated knit halter dresses with heart shaped cutouts at the waist, lavender pantsuits, high-tech catsuits and print shorts and matching tops all adhere to Schloss’s unusual combination of saccharine romance with something just a little bit sinister.

She combines sweet bows, ditsy florals and ladylike looks with high-tech fabrics, skewed proportions and psychedelic patterns. A nod to the ’90s club scene is reflected in lace tube tops, skintight cropped jumpsuits, shrunken skirt suits and lingerie accents, with stockings wrapped in black ribbon.

Schloss also incorporates an equestrian theme with collared silks in harlequin prints and jersey capris and introduced the first Maisie Wilen handbag collection in collaboration with Danse Lente. The capsule collection features six handbags combining the Korean-British accessories brand’s Lola, Rosie and Phoebe purses with Maisie Wilen’s abstract prints.

Just as Jeremy Scott did at the Moschino show a few days earlier, Schloss championed diversity on the runway, featuring a model in a wheelchair showcasing a sexy one-piece “Revenge” catsuit from the collection.

At the end of the runway show, German pop star Kim Petras, clad in a tiered lace babydoll dress and matching hose, did her best Madonna imitation, singing her newly released single, “Future Starts Now,” as models wound their way around the room. Get the party started!