When a Designer’s Rejection of Trends Starts Becoming a Trend of Its Own
Fashion designer Maria Pinto is pioneering women’s fashion with a process diametrically opposed to conventional and slimy practices.
MAR. 31, 2024
The “fashion futurist” moniker is fitting for Maria Pinto, the contrarian Chicago-based designer who doesn’t give a denim rip about what’s trendy. She prefers subtle sophistication, timeless minimalism to tacky à la mode, and her newest spring collection, Antibes, reflects the sentiment. It hit the shelves this week in her online store as well as her newly opened Gold Coast boutique, which she also designed and decorated herself. No surprise there.
Professional fashion design has been Pinto’s lifeblood since 1991, the year she started her namesake brand. In the three-plus decades since, her designs have morphed from sumptuous accessories to luxurious evening wear to her current emphasis: clothing for the “contemporary, working woman,” as she puts it. Pinto, now 67, still projects a youthful exuberance that says “working woman” herself, one with no inclination to stop doing what she loves anytime soon. The passion in her voice is unmistakable, like a diamond brooch on a monochromatic Isabella, a signature Maria Pinto dress.
The Isabella, as with everything in Pinto’s catalog, is made with superior craftsmanship that doesn’t sacrifice ethical practices, a particular point of pride for the mindful modiste. She uses imported fabrics from Italian mills, and she refuses to manufacture in dangerous factories abroad. The result, according to Pinto, is clothing better characterized as accessible than affordable, because the latter term can be seen as a pejorative in the fashion world. “I’m just looking to make the best garment I can for the best price I can,” she says.
What Pinto embodies is a rare form of so-called fashion populism. Ambitious yet compassionate, she has aspirations that far transcend maximizing personal revenue, and this altruistic approach reveals itself from the factory to the runway, from the backs of the rich and famous to the backs of middle-class mothers. Thus, it’s truly a big tent operation, from producer to consumer. The juxtaposition with fast fashion—the practice of producing trendy yet shoddy clothing from low-quality materials and through exploitative labor practices—is stark. Much gets said of “the process,” what it entails, who it involves, when it comes to successful people in any field, and the reality isn’t always pleasant. With Pinto, however, the process is both the reason for her success and the reason for her respect.
Her and her brand’s positive reputation has led to numerous accolades and high-profile clients over the years. Pinto is the unlikely source of commonality between figures as disparate as Michelle Obama, Mick Jagger and Jeanne Gang, all of whom have donned her creations at some point or another. In fact, Obama was clad in Pinto éclat when she and her husband visited the White House for the first time as the first couple-elect, rendering a Pinto among the most viewed articles of clothing in the world.
Nevertheless, through seismic success and critical acclaim, Pinto remains the once humble teenager, born to working-class Italian-Americans on Chicago’s South Side, who was making her own clothes with a sewing machine. In this way, while her brand may evolve, Pinto remains the same. She is still just an artist, committed to a process and working tirelessly to realize a vision. In the coming weeks, Antibes pieces will find new homes in new closets, as the woman behind them dreams up what’s next.
Photo credit: Anna Knott