Mafalda von Hessen inks new deals and shows on Île Saint-Louis

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
Mar 13, 2017

Mafalda, as everyone calls her, presented her latest ideas in a delightful showroom on Île Saint-Louis. It turned out to be the studio apartment of rock-star and fashion photographer Bryan Adams; a charming ground-floor pad illuminated by a great verrière and located inside a charming courtyard.
 

An ideal spot to view Maranda’s ideas for fall 2017. Von Hessen’s oeuvre is patrician casual chic. Though based in Rome, Mafalda is the scion of one of Europe’s oldest royal families, the rulers of Hesse in central Germany. That makes her a cousin of the Queen of England.
 
What impressed most were hieroglyphic-print velour sweatshirts; asymmetrical portfolio skirts and boldly colored, broken square-print silk dresses. “I call them Mondino meets de Chirico,” said the princess designer.

The brand has also upped its tailoring quotient – notably with some beautiful mannish double-breasted coats and blazers made in remarkable padded denim. The material came in a muddy print based on photos of mountains by Mafalda’s boyfriend Rolf Sachs. Ideal for a cool gent and rock star – and hence apt for her Paris show space.
 

Prior to launching her own collection, von Hessen worked for the noted Anglo-Irish opera director and set designer Patrick Kinmonth, and was a style ambassador for Giorgio Armani.  A regular on international best dressed lists, Mafalda launched her house in 2015 in Rome, where she has lived since the 1980S. She designs in collaboration with Eric Wright, a legendarily elegant figure who was for 37 years Karl Lagerfeld’s right-hand-man at the German star’s own signature label.
 
Her house has recently signed long-term manufacturing agreements with two major Italian producers of high quality ready-to-wear: Roscini of Perugia and Cieffe in Lombardy. The collection is available online in Matches.com and in such fashion forward boutiques as the Corner, the Colette of Berlin. Her fashion is highly practical, with a dark masculine mood. Elegant yet utilitarian too.