Mackage - fall/winter 2005
Mackage mirrors the Milan runway this season by reconfiguring the London youthquake movement of the sixties with their Burberry-flavoured trench coats with rounded lapels, teardrop buttons and catch-all pockets. Collars are up and belts are in their women’s line, and fur trim on hoods gives a definite Canadian look to a collection that is otherwise so energetically devoted to Old World romanticism. One example where this modernization doesn’t seem to work, however, is in their twenty-first century take on the caped redingote, a bulky, unflattering contraption.
Lime-green and umber walk the line of colour miscegenation, giving unusual verve to empire-waisted treated leather jackets. Some of the most intriguing coats include one that only give glimpses of glinting, supple leather patches as delightful bits of fashion foreplay. These experiments don’t quite resound the same way in their menswear pieces. The boxy, awkward cuts don’t give any shape definition, and the flashy zippers and decorative swatches only serve to cheapen what might have been designed with a classic look in mind.
Mackage’s silhouette modifications, however, reach their targets. The curving lapel for women helps to sufficiently break up the symmetry of a label that can sometimes be tediously fixated on it.
Daniel Cox, Fashion Editor
Marek Wlazlo, Photographer
