Female Supremacy Articles - Page 27

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And sometimes it seems finely resolved, as in Tomas Maier’s show for Bottega Veneta, perhaps the week’s most satisfying, in which he recast ordinary work gear for the label’s clientele of putative gazillionaires. It is never clear to this observer who the client is for Mr. Maier’s phenomenally costly clothing, but he certainly makes one wish one could afford to join their ranks.

“We were looking at functionality,” the designer explained, as well as the connection between what a man does and what he wears. From the boxy trousers, the taut jackets, the heavy denims and the so-called chore coats, one deduces that Mr. Maier is dressing garage mechanics, albeit those who have hit it big in the lottery.

Mr. Maier’s was a beautiful show and as direct as Alexander McQueen’s was vagrant, and also lyrical. Inspired by a pilgrimage to India, Mr. McQueen said the show was originally intended to have an Argentine pampas theme. Then he decided to embark on a monthlong journey through Kerala and Rajasthan and the remote and lawless state of Bihar — where Mr. McQueen, a Buddhist, visited the place in which Gautama Buddha attained enlightenment — ending up in the isolated mountain kingdom of Bhutan.