For Spring 2025, Bach Mai 'Claws Out of the Darkness'

“If you asked me 12 hours ago, I would’ve [said] I had a lot of regrets that I was doing [this show],” Bach Mai told Fashionista backstage. “I thought it was going to be a disaster, everything was going wrong.”

The designer calls this past year “the darkest of [his] life,” as he’s still mourning the loss of his father while also navigating the challenging economic landscape many independent designers are currently feeling the weight of. 

For Mai, it’s a time when hope, optimism and lightness have felt elusive, yet have never been more needed. So for his Spring 2025 collection, he landed on “clawing himself out of this darkness and [finding] the invincible summer within.”

“There was a quote by Albert Camus, which was ‘Au milieu de l’hiver, j’ai découvert en moi un invincible été.’ It means ‘In the middle of winter I discovered in myself an invincible summer,'” Mai said of his starting point. “It’s been a really tough past year for a lot of reasons. I have been using a lot of black, which I don’t usually do. I kind of wanted to use this collection to claw myself out of that darkness and purposefully reach for optimism instead of getting buried by everything else.”

To deliver on this mission, Mai turned to a myriad of bold, vibrant hues, ranging from vivid red to seafoam green to baby pink. His penchant for craftsmanship was also on full display, as he let his haute couture training speak for itself: Floor-grazing trumpet hem gowns, corseted tops and draped overcoats with a giant bow-adorned back proved the former assistant to John Galliano‘s eye for impeccable fit.

“I was like, ‘You know what? I’m just going to make clothes that I love,'” he said. “And remember why I do this, why I started doing this and what caused me to love fashion in the first place…We pulled together something that I’m really proud of, and thanks to my team, we’re like a ragtag band of kids trying to put on a show. But I feel like that’s what New York is about. Paris has these huge houses with big budgets. We have scrappiness and gumption and passion. I also wanted to create a moment that I hope I was able to share with everyone. That’s why I do this.”

 See all the looks from Bach Mai Spring 2025 below.

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Source: Fashionista.com