The starting point for Ming Ma’s spring lineup was a book of drawings by the prolific British Victorian botanist and explorer Marianne North. It wasn’t only North’s work documenting plants and flowers that had Ma’s creativity in full bloom this season, but her spirit of adventure. From Jamaica and Brazil to Syria and along the Nile, North traveled extensively. Her work also extended past the scientific, it included the locations she would often visit.
North makes the most fitting of muses for Ma. The designer has cultivated an impressive garland of floral references, each season finding a new way to deliver a fresh new bouquet. But Ma is also a travel fanatic, always introducing his collections with a sense of wanderlust, whether that be about where he envisioned himself going before designing or where he sees his clothes blossoming into life.
“I wanted it to be a little bit sexier and more personal,” the designer said at his showroom, “also simply more mature.” This came through via his choice of fabrics: soft cottons, linens, and voiles. “We’ve used a lot of manmade fabrics before, but it felt right to use really natural fibers now,” he explained. North’s oil paintings translated directly into a repeat floral print used throughout the collection, but most captivating and fun were cutesy bead clusters that replicated the flowers she studied. Ma really found his groove this time around. This sense of play was balanced with the pragmatism of a great double-sided bomber and the funkiness of a lace zip-up hoodie and silk bloomers worn under tailored shorts or pencil skirts.
He also starched some of his lace pieces to give them structure—while not the most comfortable to touch, they looked fantastic, particularly a slip and tailored blazer in which every single technical detail was out in the open to explore. There’s a collective anxiety at Shanghai Fashion Week due to dwindling crowds at shows and reduced foot traffic at the showrooms, and so “mature” is a word that has come up repeatedly this week. Ma’s take on maturity was neither boring nor stuffy. His compass is pointing in the right direction.