In Bach Mai's World, Sirens Wear Demi-Couture

You may be lured in by the alluring song, but it's the textile work and mind-blowing fabrications that'll mesmerize you.

Earlier this New York Fashion Week, we saw Ph5 imagine how we'd dress if we were forced to live among the detritus humans have thrown into the ocean (a.k.a. "monster soup" — Bolu Babalola). That wasn't the only brand looking into the depths for Fall 2023 inspiration.

On Tuesday, Bach Mai presented a collection titled "Cave of The Sirens" with models moving slowly but confidently, as if pushing against water, through a room blanketed in fog, as sheets of mylar flapped overhead and pianist David Taubman played Philip Glass live.

"The collection really started as an exploration of light," said the designer. "I became really enamored — ages ago, actually — with these images of like ice beaches with black sand in Iceland. Then I found glow worm caves... It really came down to this one image in my head of being in this deep sea cave that's dark and cold, but then the sunlight is piercing through the water to reach you."

That led Mai to dig deeper into this idea of "refraction and reflection, the way [light] is transmitted through different mediums." Fall 2023 is his attempt at "capturing this image of a cold, dark deep sea cave with this piercing light that shimmers and moves and comes to life."

Bach Mai has only been in business for about a year and a half, give or take a few months. But how the Parsons grad and Maison Margiela Artisinal alumnus has distinguished himself and his namesake brand in the market is through textiles, working with (and receiving investment from) Hurel, the storied French fabric manufacturer that services haute couture and high-end design clients. Its New York Fashion Week debut last February featured an airy clear lurex and an ombré silk velvet woven from tinsel and fine chiffon ribbons; Fall 2023 has an otherworldly metallic iridescent moiré and shiny, reflective embroideries paired with sheer black layers of tulle and chiffon that act almost like veils.

"The way we use tulle — like, it's a lot of tulle, but it's all in one layer, so when she walks you see the hint of skin, but then when she's not [walking], it closes back up, like, again, the way the light is shimmering through this dark water," he said. And as for the moiré: "The owner of the mill came to New York, and we were talking about fabrics and he saw immediately how much I loved fabric and how much I knew about it. We developed it together, right there at that table."

The designer also made a concerted effort to not include what has become one of his most recognizable silhouettes, the sculptural Volant gown, in this collection. "It's time to move forward," he said. "I didn't want the brand to be about one dress."

Instead, Mai challenges himself to convey the codes of his namesake brand through other shapes and dress styles: "It's about a feeling. It's about a view of femininity, feminine power, unabashed femininity — this irreverent glamour, that you can wear glamorous clothes without taking it so seriously."

Mai also noticeably darkens his color palette, the pastels of last fall replaced with blacks, navies and deep greens. "It's kind of an ode to Karl Lagerfeld," he said — "not just the black. There's the embroideries, which are almost my interpretation of a Lagerfeld embroidery, which for me has always been a mix of delicacy, fragility, but also a very couture lushness."

See every look in Bach Mai Fall 2023 below.

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