Get of the fashion beaten track with Mafalda von Hessen SS18

by Anaelle Coulon

Mafalda von Hessen brand is born from the partnership between two long-time friends : Mafalda von Hessen and Eric Wright. Mafalda is a painter with a master’s degree in design and also a real Princess. She is the grandndaughter of Mafalda di Savoia who is the daughter of King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy. Her partner, Eric Wright is a californian-born creative director had been for a decade the Karl Lagerfeld’s right-hand man at Fendi. He infuses the MvH fashion with his masculine touch and this timeless allure he acquired when he worked as menswear creative director at Trussardi and Roberto Cavalli.

Their label offers a wardrobe of modern essentials and also some accessories. MVH brand was established in Rome in 2013 as « an experimental project » and it has developed to become a complete concept ready for a global expansion.  All the clothes were made in Italy with the highest quality craftmanship. The carefully chosen materials associated to a particular sense of colour are the MvH’signature, the brand DNA. The two designers are also sensitive to social and environmental issues. This ethical responsability leads them to reuse collection-over-collection the fabric scraps, avoiding materials waste. Thus, we can find pockets or some details made with the last collection fabrics. The clothes are designed with a long-term season mind, Mafalda von Hessen wants « to make things that last ». So she creates an intemporal wardrobe which transcends every season.

Mafalda finds a part of her inspiration in the sublime nature and architecture surrounded her in the Roman headquarters of the brand in the Villa Polissena. Each MvH garment is a perfect balance between feminity and strength, designed for confident and dynamic women looking for an efficient elegance. The pieces are designed as flexible and interchangeable elements. Every clothes could be worn in different way depending the style women want to create. The MvH garments come alive on the woman and could be reinvented every day. She also creates a lot of cartoonish « happy faces » and « oops » that she discreetly inserts in each garment as tags or signature. She makes a joyful fashion, far from the classic snobbish luxury.

The SS18 MvH collection we have discovered the 28 of June in Paris was a beautiful tribute to Mafalda’s painting passion. Thus, we find her artistic emotionalism in the prints that she personally creates, such as a multicolored web of criss-cross stripes or funny paint splashes inspired by those she can seen on her painting blouse. Before, tailoring mastery runs across the collection like in safari or military jackets in tightly woven Japanese cotton. We noticed also light garments made in a superior quality fineand supple leather made in Naples. According to the brand’s philosophy, each garment can be transformed like a long pink coat that can be worn as a dress.