The Brandon Maxwell Resort 2022 collection is filled with poppy prints including leopard spots, zebra stripes, florals, butterflies, and polka dots. “I wanted the prints to do a lot of the work on most of the silhouettes,” said teh designer.

Maxwell’s silhouettes remain as exacting and body-limning as ever, but the prints he commissioned from the interiors company Voutsa have an artful, hand-rendered look. The juxtaposition is particularly effective on the opening number: a long belted dress aswirl with green polka dots whose draped hourglass effect is achieved with a paint brush, not pinning and tucking.

On other looks, he combined patterns, pairing a black-on-cream leopard motif slip dress with a spotted coat in the reverse colorway, or splicing a wallpaper floral with those leopard spots for a fits-like-a-glove long-sleeved sheath.

Maxwell put an after-dark spin on cable knits, cutting both an ankle-grazing cape and a matching capelet and sarong set in the stuff. These are novel enough, but it’s the prints that look like the beginning of a new chapter.