I
’ve got this trope that I adore of a
movie star arriving at the studio
in the morning in a white car
with a white coat wrapped at the
waist with a belt, dark glasses
and her hair swept back—of-duty
movie-star glamour is what I want to
give every woman when she puts on her
Max Mara coat,’’ says the label’s creative
director, Ian Griiths. As the man at the
helm of the company that produces
arguably the world’s most coveted coats,
he has probably achieved his dream.
Synonymous with understated ele-
gance, the Max Mara cover-ups are
considered iconic symbols of modern
power dressing. Worn with devotion by
fashion’s elite and celebrity A-listers
alike, they have been celebrated in
books, galleries and even their own
travelling exhibition, Coats!, which has
toured Moscow, Beijing, Tokyo, Berlin
and, most recently, Seoul.
It’s exactly what founder Achille
Maramotti hoped for when he launched
his label in 1951 in the northern Italian
town of Reggio Emilia on the back of
one design: the humble camel coat. This
was coupled with his aspiring motto to
“make the ordinary extraordinary”.
Maramotti’s initial cover-ups werecreated with “the doctor’s or lawyer’s
wife” in mind, which – in retrospect –
was visionary genius. The designer had
rightly identified a burgeoning new
audience for luxury apparel, and placed
the label’s camel design at its centre.
Today, some 200,000 Max Mara
coats are sold every year and the brand
is one of nine in the fashion house’s
global empire, which includes Sport-
max, Marina Rinaldi and Max & Co.
Griiths says the coat of his dreams
“is still to come’’, adding that embracing
innovation has been the cornerstone of
Max Mara’s outerwear evolution. Heav-
ily influenced by the punk and New
Wave artists he befriended in London
in the ’80s, Griiths is adept at drawing
inspiration from many sources. “This
season we pay homage to the poet
Charles Baudelaire,” he says. “He always
wore a coat with a freeness of his own.”’50s
’80s
’90s
’60s
’70s
Supermodel Linda
Evangelista wearing
the Manuela coat
from the A/W
1997-’98 collection.The Pop collection
proved so popular it
eventually morphed
into Sportmax. This
ad was part of the
1977-’78 campaign.Futurist illustrator
Erberto Carboni
was the artist
behind Max
Mara’s first
advertising
campaign in 1958.This decade
welcomed a
fresh array of
designers, who
collaborated
on new lines
such as the
Pop range.
Sketches
(above) are
from the 1966-
’67 collection.Model Steevie
Van Der Veen fronting
the label’s 1987-’88
ad campaign.2000
Designed by
Anne-Marie
Beretta in 1981,
the classic 101801
double-breasted
overcoat is the
label’s perennial
bestseller.PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARIO SORRENTI FOR MAX MARA; COURTESY OF MAX MARA.