Maria Silver
Immigration, motherhood, New York in the 1970s — these things could all be fodder for the next Zadie Smith novel. But they’re also part of the autobiographical inspiration for the latest collection from Black by Maria Silver, which will be on the Nashville Fashion Week runway April 3. Maria “Poni” Silver, the woman behind the collection, is a designer whose nickname perfectly fits her style — equine grace matched with punkish cool.
“I based the collection on my mother,” Silver tells the Scene over coffee at Bongo East, just down the road from her Woodland Street boutique. “She moved from the Dominican Republic to Manhattan in 1973, when she married my dad.”
Silver’s designs based on that transition, from life in the DR to life on West 103rd Street, are rich with detail — floral prints, patchwork denim, bright stripes. It’s all very ’70s, but more in line with Bianca Jagger than Janis Joplin. Silver approaches her line with an anthropologist’s curiosity, starting by asking her now-74-year-old mother where she bought her coat for that first New York winter and what she did with her days in the summer.
“She was a housewife,” says Silver. “She had a neighbor named Francia, who I’d never heard her mention before, and they would play dominoes all day. When it was time for the husbands to be coming back from work, they’d rush back to their own apartments.
“Sometimes she’d let the rice burn because she was having so much fun,” Silver adds with a smile.
Silver participated in the first Nashville Fashion Week in 2011, when she’d been in Nashville for about five years. She moved to town in the mid-Aughts to play drums with her band, The Ettes. Before that she’d lived in Los Angeles, Florida and New York, where she’d graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology and worked in the Broadway costume industry on productions like Rent.
She still plays drums — her band with Chet Weise, Kings of the F**King Sea, is playing this year’s sludge-heavy Muddy Roots Festival — and that part of her life may continue to influence her style as a designer. Black by Maria Silver tends to focus on separates instead of dresses, for example, which Silver says relates to the need to be able to mix and match when you’re traveling or on tour.
This summer, Silver will attend Decoded Future Summit in London, thanks to the NFW’s Fashion Forward Fund endowment. The fund — endowed by proceeds from NFW — is awarded to one recipient chosen each year by the Community Foundation board, and the money goes toward the recipient’s professional advancement. At the Decoded summit, Silver will attend panels led by industry professionals who incorporate new technology into fashion companies, but she’ll also use her time in London to meet with designers from around the world, and go to museums, galleries and fashion archives.
Silver is determined to bring what she learns back to Nashville. Since moving here, she’s been able to maintain a fierce ambition and even fiercer camaraderie among her peers. Her edgy-but-accessible designs have made her a favorite among fellow musicians like Margo Price, who wore BBMS in a 2017 Cosmopolitan spread, and she counts designers Leslie Stephens (whose line Ola Mai will share a runway with BBMS at Nashville Fashion Week) and Amanda Valentine among her closest friends.
“I couldn’t have my own store in New York,” she says matter-of-factly. “It just wouldn’t happen. And everyone who’s showing that night, those are people I love.”
