10 Maximalist Designers and the Color Theory Behind Their Work
Out with quiet luxury, in with bold self-expression. Breaking down the contemporary names leading the “more is more” movement.
Despite a recent shift towards reduction and neologisms like “quiet luxury,” the fashion world has long held a special place in its heart for color—and plenty of it. Following a period of austere minimalism in the ’90s, the runway has been rife with maximalism throughout the 21st century, led by the likes of Alessandro Michele, Marc Jacobs and the people’s king of playfulness, Jeremy Scott.
An unabashed embrace of excess, major palettes have also allowed designers to channel joy and jubilation, exemplified by the deft skill of Marni’s color-blocked ensembles and Wales Bonner’s application of Pantone shades. Today’s class knows there’s more to color theory than what they’re taught in elementary school, drawing on the emotions, semiotic associations and memories attached to specific hues in the color wheel.
Below, a rundown of fashion’s most influential colorists.
Prada
Since 1978, Miuccia Prada has helmed (or co-helmed) her family’s business, taking it from a respected leather goods brand into an avant-garde fashion powerhouse. In doing so, her daring tastes in fabrics and colors have been vital.
Nowadays, everyone knows about Prada’s “ugly chic” approach, although it wasn’t officially labeled as such until SS96 when the designer introduced a brilliant yet unconventional palette of browns and greens across table-cloth coats, eccentric sweaters and mismatched tweeds. From there, those same colors would continue to punctuate Prada’s offerings, appearing throughout the ’90s, and again, notably, at the SS03 show, when the iconic duchesse shift dresses and wrap-around skirts were dyed like biohazardous slime.
Through the years, Prada’s penchant for putrid palettes morphed, taking on a hyper-toxic form for SS11, when cataract-inducing banana prints (now a house icon) appeared across Cuban shirts, set against ornate, tangerine-accented puffball skirts. Those same banana prints arrived again for FW18’s menswear collection, cross-sectioned with multicolored flames.
Marni
The eclectic Milanese label has found ingenious ways to mix and match statement colors from its early days, clashing blossom and daisy-yellow polka dots in blouse-midi combinations (see SS00) or styling looks with Mondrian finesse—the latter perfected for SS08 in white leatherette T-shirts, outlined with moss green sleeves and teamed with neon cerise suit pants.
Founding designer Consuelo Castiglioni built Marni on this eccentric approach, and by SS02, she was drip-feeding it across her menswear division via striped trousers, lilac shirting combos and chalkstick-blue blazers layered atop Warholian florals. Today, that same aesthetic is turbo-charged under the direction of Prada alum Francesco Risso, whose blend of artisto-eccentricism and bohemian Sciura lends itself to an eternally summer-like sensibility.
Casablanca
Casablanca creative director Charaf Tajer excels with the printed shirt, infusing his silky canvases with hyper-realist projections in a palette that blends Miami Vice with Ottoman decadence. While this signature is the lifeblood of his label, he imbues almost all his garbs with a similar flamboyance, tapping into national and cultural histories that certain hues or tones might evoke. The usual dusting of terracotta pink recalls his parents’ native Morocco, while two-tone canary and palm-green satin trousers might instead reference Nigeria, his chosen location for the SS24 show.
FW21’s red-and-white checkerboard outerwear, a nod to Monaco’s F1 leisure class, was equally bold. Other references are subtler: FW23 showcased swirling navy florals on ombré denim and green-blue monograms on tailoring, paying tribute to Arabic tilework and Tajer’s North African/Parisian roots.
Wales Bonner
Few others employ color with the academic nuance of Grace Wales Bonner. For the past decade, the Central Saint Martins-trained Londoner has imbued her namesake label with rich narratives of migration and post-colonial theory, peppering collections with the greens, yellows and reds of Rastafarian insignia. For FW20’s menswear outing, these colors informed sumptuous patchwork shirts and flat caps, as well as knitted vests. Another standout collection, SS21 men’s, explored the Caribbean diaspora, mirroring the hot pinks of ’80s and ’90s dancehall parties.
Pivoting to sportswear, Bonner’s fizzing adidas partnership has turned archival sneakers and tracksuits—be it a pair of Sambas or the iconic Firebird two-piece—into symbols of Afro-Caribbean pride. Meanwhile, the bumblebee adidas Neftegna sneakers aired for SS24 were an ode to Ethiopian runner Haile Gebrselassie, who won the Berlin 2008 Marathon in that very model.
KidSuper
Colm Dillane is the New Yorker behind KidSuper, the Crayola-splashed label founded in Brooklyn in 2010. Since setting up shop, the soccer-playing math graduate has cross-pollinated the worlds of art, hip-hop and fashion, encapsulated by SS23’s auction-inspired runway, playfully labeled ‘Superby’s’ in a nod to Sotheby’s. The multifaceted experience saw models descend the runway in wearable artworks—watercolor portraits on double-breasted blazers, pop-art divas on gingham sets and abstract figurations morphed into camouflage knits.
Color has helped Dillane explore the inner workings and realities of running a label, bringing his story to life. When he was rejected by the French fashion industry governing body after applying to show at Paris Fashion Week FW20, he took the rejection letter, colored it with flamingo-pink and banana-yellow paint and superimposed it on a camisole that same season.
ERL
Think back to A$AP Rocky’s technicolor patchwork quilt at the 2021 Met Gala. That standout outfit was the work of Eli Russell Linnetz, the Venice Beach-born designer behind ERL.
Linnetz has a thing for outrageous palettes, with his remit spanning graffiti-scrawled, fluoro skiwear (FW21), Stars and Stripes karate uniforms (SS22) and an unforgettable neon-green set design to present his guest collection at Pitti Uomo (SS24). Throughout his oeuvre, the multitalented artist has relied on high-saturation imagery and sunkissed surfers to make his choice tints explode.
Marc Jacobs
You can’t talk about color without mentioning Marc Jacobs, the living legend who first made his name as New York’s polka-dot pioneer in the early ’80s. Quickly gaining traction after an ebullient graduation show at Parsons School of Design, Jacobs was enlisted by U.S. retailer Charivari—where he’d worked as a stock boy at the age of 15—to put his signature smiley-faced prints into production. Soon after, sportswear label Sketchbook took him on as creative chief, ushering in oversized knitted sweaters in sea greens and blue gradations alongside coin-dot bodysuits.
Years later, the club kid landed a role at Perry Ellis, making fashion history with an SS93 grunge collection that infamously lost him his job. Here, lilac leather coats, sagged beanies and three-button blazers came together in monochrome ensembles, finished with flannel shirts in custard, lavender and grass. Elsewhere, ethereal organza dresses, tinted in iridescent purples and pinks, gave the collection a flower-girl softness.
Yet it’s the high-low camp introduced to Louis Vuitton, mainly through extravagant collaborations, that remains Jacobs’ most famous legacy. The sweetshop-inspired LV monogram with Takashi Murakami for SS03, the lime-green Stephen Sprouse Speedy bags from FW08 and the iconic yellow-and-green checkered pencil skirts from SS13 are still widely celebrated in the fashion world.
Gucci
After rising to Gucci creative director in 2015, former accessories designer Alessandro Michele’s unique maximalism signaled a new era for fashion. Michele eventually left the house in 2022 after presiding over what can only be described as an all-out celebration of kitsch. His recent moves at Valentino suggest more of the same lies in wait.
Gucci FW15 menswear announced the beginning of Michele’s public love affair with scarlet pussy-bows and gender-fluid blouses, but it was a debut that, by his standards, would soon feel tepid. By SS16, the florals his predecessor Frida Giannini had made her signature were amped up in baby-pink, rose-lined mandarin suits or luxe emerald satin gowns—a skew towards excess that only grew.
Season after season, the set designs became more ornate and garish—shamrock green carpets for SS17 men’s or a hospital blue mise-en-scène for FW18. Whether it was SS19’s tinsel-lined violet sweaters or beaded, feathered and jeweled cocktail dresses in amethyst and salmon, Gucci’s gaudiness struck a chord.
Bottega Veneta
Long before Charli XCX staked her claim on the piquant shade of green we’ve come to love, Bottega Veneta had ushered in some of the most choice greens we’ve ever seen. Unlike Charli’s limey neon hue, however, Bottega is synonymous with a lusher green, part earthy, a little bit shamrock and perhaps even parakeet.
First arriving in tandem with the house’s late-2010s revival, these zings of green would douse intrecciato bags popular among less-is-more acolytes. The appeal? Its ability to cut through an understated fit, as pioneered by former creative director, Daniel Lee, whose reign at Bottega was defined by similarly risqué tones. Consider his FW19 debut for the label, headlined by textured leathers, almost entirely in black or dark chocolate brown. Among the intentionally subdued overcoats, the occasional separate would appear isolated in cyans, carrots, beetroots or phthalo blues.
Since Lee stepped down in 2021, his successor, Matthieu Blazy, has continued to experiment with garish color schemes, most notably with his SS23 collection where he partnered with interior design legend Gaetano Pesce. Here, Blazy gave the catwalk a makeover recalling a melted Crayola set, lining it with the technicolor resin chairs Pesce made his name on. Naturally, the collection flitted between jet-black officewear, ox blood leather trews and petaled couture pieces drenched in crimson or aqua.
Jeremy Scott
Love him or hate him, the polarizing Kansas City designer knows how to make a collection pop. This was clear from the outset when he served up ruffled Barbie pinks in perforated princess gowns, bonnets and leotards for FW99—one of his first official collections at his eponymous label. It was a precursor for what was to come during his legendary stint at Moschino.
Scott garnered attention with his Mattel co-signed, Barbie-inspired collection for the Milanese house in SS15. In this collection, the franchise’s hot pink was deployed generously, appearing across Perfecto leathers and knitted mini skirts, and accenting green Chanel-style suits. His career-long mission to upend the overly serious world of fashion manifested itself in myriad forms: from the red-and-yellow twin sets of Moschino FW14—a hysterical homage to McDonald’s golden arches—to the ever-so Tumblr Superman camisoles and pill-print mini-dresses of his own line’s FW11 collection.
Finally, who could forget the emoticon-printed sweaters and rainbow faux-fur coats that followed for FW12? At this point, Scott embraced full vaporwave and seapunk aesthetics, printing one-shoulder bodycons in purple-hued ’90s internet windows, before closing the show in a tiled Bart Simpson sweater and orange-peel tartan bondage pants. Now, that’s camp.
10 Maximalist Designers and the Color Theory Behind Their Work is part of GOAT’s exploration of POP. Discover more about the vibrant movement through the abstract euphoria of photographer Arielle Bobb-Willis.