mal·dì·re
v.intr. e tr., sec. XIII; comp. di male e dire, cfr. lat. maledicere
To curse. Old Italian for speaking ill of.
Maldire creates technically advanced, emotionally resonant garments for those who return to the studio. Designed not to dress the body, but to accompany it, through repetition, through fatigue, through the unspectacular hours that shape everything.
Founded in 2015 Maldire began as a way to hold onto the ephemeral. It was not built on ambition, but on the refusal to accept the silence of a dancewear landscape stripped of expression. Garments were plain. Meaning was reserved for performance. And performance was reserved for the few. Maldire offered something else: a shared code worn in rehearsal. A kind of costume for those who never asked to be seen, but who remained.
There was no plan at the start. Just a need to preserve. Costume fabrics, theatrical textures, silhouettes altered through print rather than seam. Printing became a method of distortion to shift perception, to borrow from stagecraft, to cheat the eye with the same delicacy as makeup. Form was manipulated without cutting. Memory was transferred through surface
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Maldire has since evolved, but the vocabulary remains intact. Performance fabrics drawn from technical industries now form the foundation. All sourced from Italy. All chosen for their capacity to endure both movement and scrutiny. The brand works within the limits of regulation, but with a refusal to concede identity. Function is respected, never allowed to dominate. The body remains central. Its habits, its fatigue, its defiance.
Silhouettes are returned to, not out of habit, but out of trust. Each variation carries a deepened attention. Some garments are made to vanish. Others to anchor. But none are made to impress.
There are no seasons. No collections in the traditional sense. Work is released in drops — each one an extension of the last. A thought carried forward. A line spoken again with variation. The Rehearsal Line is essential. Other pieces carry more complexity. Together, they form a conversation. Nothing is made in isolation.
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Maldire draws its atmosphere from tension — the rigour of classical training and the quiet violence of nature. Velvet theatres and industrial nightlife. Tailoring and instinct. Architecture and drift. It is from this friction that use emerges. Not decoration. Not concept. Use, shaped over time.
Worn by dancers, choreographers, and those whose lives are marked by return, Maldire has become a chamber. A structure for keeping: a ribbon in a drawer, the worn spine of a practice manual, a dance floor at four in the morning. These garments do not explain these things. They simply carry them.
This is not fashion. It is not costume.
It is a habit.
A shared language.
A uniform for those who move without spectacle.
Who return to the same space, again and again, in pursuit of something felt but without name.
If you recognize this — you are already part of it.
