The future is here, and Maliki is ready with the streetwear.
A fashion design major with a minor in fashion photography, graduating senior Maliki Gilbert thrilled attendees at the Savannah College of Art and Design’s annual SCAD Fashion Show on May 19 in Atlanta. After special guest supermodel and “Queen of Pose” Coco Rocha opened the runway wearing designs by fashion student Rainey Lowery, four male models walked in garments designed by Maliki. It was a wow moment, and a woah moment too.
“I wanted to sell a fantasy of a robot dressed as a human,” says Gilbert of one of his “Cyborg” garments, which seemed to show a man with ripped-abs and LED mask strutting his stuff. “It’s an optical illusion where you think the model is shirtless, but it’s a jacket.”
Maliki’s senior collection was inspired by cyberpunk, the sci-fi genre where hacker and punk cultures collide. “Maliki is a luxury ‘phygital’ menswear label surrounding the concept of futuristic streetwear,” explained the designer. “My collection is an escape to the year 2222, taking place in an advanced cybernetic civilization.”
If the description sounds conceptual, the clothes themselves were astounding. A dreadlocked model in skin-tight lurid animal print trousers featured along with a helmeted android who may have been a direct descendent of Daft Punk. Outrageous, yes. Yet Gilbert emphasizes that the garments are “forward, yet modern yet wearable.”
As designer of the eponymous brand Maliki, Gilbert took a non-traditional path to SCAD. After nearly four years as a multiple rocket launch systems specialist in the U.S. Army, he enrolled at SCAD to pursue his passion: fashion.
“I have a love of menswear, and that became my focus,” he said. “SCAD prepared me by teaching me the essentials of being a designer. I had passionate professors who taught me the best ways to go about designing, and how to present my design to the industry. My mentor was my senior collection professor, Peter Jensen, who helped me make the right decisions and design choices.”
“Maliki Gilbert has been my student over the past few years, and I have watched him grow into an understanding of his strength within fashion and the marketplace where his creations belong,” said SCAD Atlanta associate chair of fashion Peter Jensen. “Maliki’s work is part of the new world of fashion, a crossover between high-end ideas and products. His collection reflects the world we are living in right now, and where ideas are moving. Maliki understands the market to the fullest and I know will have a long, brilliant career in fashion.”
Gilbert is a standout SCAD Atlanta student. A fixture on the SCAD Dean’s list, he is the recipient of numerous coveted scholarships from the likes of the Council of Fashion Designers of American (CFDA), Fashion Scholarship Fund’s Virgil Abloh “Post Modern” scholarship, and a Nordstrom Made Scholar.
Maliki was one of 55 SCAD student designers who contributed a total of 175 looks to the SCAD FASHION runway show. It was the culmination of their SCAD careers. The standout collections selected for the runway were expertly critiqued by a jury of some the most influential figures in fashion including designer LaQuan Smith, Vogue Runway editorial director Nicole Phelps, photographer Tommy Ton, designer Camilla Stærk, Puma’s head of design David Mackenzie and CFDA vice president Sara Kozlowski.
Dirk Standen, SCAD Dean of Fashion, former editor of Style.com, and founding editor of 23 Stories, Condé Nast’s creative agency said: “Our students put their creative soul on the line each time. I’m so impressed by how talented and switched-on they are, their amazing values, and I’ve found it so invigorating to be part of that.”
Standen emphasizes that he is able to bring his own industry relationships to bear on the lives and careers of SCAD students, including helping pitch their work to the media. (This year’s SCAD Fashion Show was covered extensively by top international fashion outlets ranging from Vogue, WWD, i-D Magazine and Fashionista.) As Standen put it: “We are preparing our students for success in the industry.”
Case in point: This summer Maliki Gilbert is interning in Milan at Off-White, the label founded by the late, great fashion visionary Virgil Abloh. The future is here, and it looks incredible.
Watch the SCAD Fashion 2023 Runway Show to see Maliki Gilbert’s collection now at scad.edu/fashion2023.
