Wham Glam

Brandon Maxwell, once an East Texas dreamer, is now a red-carpet-ready master of unabashed opulence.

- Lynn Yaeger

There is one lonely gay kid in every small town in America glued to the Tony Awards while everyone else is tossing around a football or smoking pot behind McDonald’s. In Longview, Texas, in the 1990's, that boy was Brandon Maxwell, who grew up to be a designer of sinuous confections worthy of the red carpets he once worshipped from a far.

Maxwell, 32, first came to national attention when he put Lady Gaga in the satin gowns to which she graduated after her notorious meat dress. (For the record, Maxwell says that he loves both aspects of her persona—and anyway, he was working for Gaga stylist Nicola Formichetti at the time and actually assisted on that sartorial slabfest.) The two are infact now such close friends that Maxwell relishes talking to her while she soaks in the bathtub.

Gaga is hardly alone in her affection for Maxwell’s classic vision. The designer’s most recent show, held at the Russian Tea Room (the kind of historic venue he adores), was a major hit of New York Fashion Week—maybe because the clothes, unapologetically lovely with no irony or subtext, spoke loud and clear to young women eager to don something frankly glamorous. Suddenly there seems to be a collective desire to dump the hipster high jinks and slip into the types of silhouettes that have flattered women for decades: perfectly cut slim skirts and tailored trousers, cropped camisoles, and dramatic organza ball dresses.