244
Fashion Jobs
H&M
Visual Merchandiser Manager- Newmarket
Permanent · AUCKLAND
L'OREAL GROUP
Operations & Transport Manager
Permanent · AUCKLAND
ABBOTT
Tpm Contract Manufacturing Manager
Permanent · AUCKLAND
ESSILORLUXOTTICA GROUP
Optometrist - Opsm Rotorua
Permanent · ROTORUA
DANGERFIELD
Online Coordinator
Permanent · AUCKLAND
PUMA
Key Account Manager nz
Permanent · AUCKLAND
L'OREAL GROUP
Key Account Manager
Permanent · AUCKLAND
PETER ALEXANDER
Part Time - Sales Assistant - Peter Alexander nz - Queenstown
Permanent · QUEENSTOWN
FOOT LOCKER
Sales Associate Casual
Permanent · LOWER HUTT
ESSILORLUXOTTICA GROUP
Retail Associate | Sunglass Hut Manukau
Permanent · AUCKLAND
ESSILORLUXOTTICA GROUP
Retail Associate | Sunglass Hut Dunedin
Permanent · DUNEDIN
ESSILORLUXOTTICA GROUP
Retail Associate | Opsm Rangiora Eyecare
Permanent · CANTERBURY
PETER ALEXANDER
2 x Casual - Sales Assistant - Peter Alexander nz - MT Maunganui
Permanent · AUCKLAND
PETER ALEXANDER
2 x Part Time - Sales Assistant - Peter Alexander nz - MT Maunganui
Permanent · AUCKLAND
LULULEMON
Assistant Manager | Christchurch (Tuesday - Saturday Rotation)
Permanent · CHRISTCHURCH
ICEBREAKER
Icebreaker : Sales Associate, Casual - Wellington Airport Touchlab
Permanent · WELLINGTON
DFS
Personal Shopper
Permanent · AUCKLAND
H&M
Department Manager- Chartwell (Hamilton)
Permanent · HAMILTON
H&M
Store Manager Wellington
Permanent · WELLINGTON
H&M
Sales Advisor- 28h
Permanent · AUCKLAND
H&M
Assistant Store Manager- Sylvia Park
Permanent · AUCKLAND
H&M
Department Manager- Sylvia Park
Permanent · AUCKLAND
Published
Feb 23, 2023
Reading time
3 minutes
Download
Download the article
Print
Text size

Max Mara: Romantic dignity

Published
Feb 23, 2023

This is as debonair as it gets. Few brands in fashion better express what true luxury means more than Max Mara, which presented an elegiac, intellectual and rather brilliant collection on a sunny Thursday morning in Milan.
 

Max Mara AW23


A blend of 18th centuary silhouettes, romantic attitude, exceptional fabrics and a soupcon of posh punk, this was a smash hit collection greeted with enormous applause.
 
Designer Ian Griffiths’ starting point was Max Mara’s decision to sponsor the restoration of the Gulbenkian Museum’s 18th century art collection in Lisbon – stemming from the house’s cruise show held there last spring, which led Ian to consider the past era as “a time that was very similar to our own. The ideas and the communications of that time in the coffee houses can be compared to today on social media.”

Through Voltaire he discovered, Emilie de Châtelet, the thinker’s great companion. Who was known for her charming Discours sur le bonheur, and for translating Isaac Newton into French.

“She was completely ahead of her time, and she spent 10 years locked away in her own Chateau du Cirey, spending her days in scientific experiment and philosophical discourse,” marvelled the designer.

This led him to begin designing something she might have liked to have worn, “though of course from the other end of the telescope it’s about something to wear now,” he smiled.
 
“It’s a more rational approach to what to wear at a time when fashion was apotropaic, my new favorite word, meaning like totemic,” said the well-read Griffiths, using the ancient Greek term for warding off evil.
 
A key element in the collection was the Banyan coat, a loose, dressing gown shaped garment, originally based on the kimono and introduced to Europe in the 17th century. It was seen in multiple versions in beige or caramel brocade, jacquard or cashmere. The Banyan was traditionally worn with britches, but instead chez Max Mara, it was paired with posh bovver boots or accessorized with leather obi belts or even corsets.


Max Mara AW23


Also impressing was a great series of redingotes in double face cashmere – all perfect. As were more fluid coats gathered at the back, referencing court dresses from the reign of Louis 15th – and seen even in swirling parkas and ribbed cashmere cardigans.
 
Griffiths also boldly played with volumes, with coppery brocade bubble skirts, dresses and brilliantly billowing pant suits. The cast weaving past the giant fluted columns with real majesty to an ideally dramatic soundtrack of Addolorata by Ryan Bigelow, blended with deep funk.
 
Aided by some impeccable styling by veteran Tonne Goodman and worn on an array of new models, decked out almost modestly, their hair tied back with simple ribbons, this was a great display of very classy fashion. 
 
Staged inside La Rotonda della Bessana, a former Renaissance hospital, the show also marked the return en masse to European shows of Chinese stars and influencers – as the effects of the pandemic finally eases on travel from China. Their photographers spending the half hour after the show shooting scores of influence peddlers under the finely lit colonnades, excellent social media brand burnishing for Max Mara.
 
Though the overriding memory of the morning will be a great collection by Ian Griffiths.
 
 

Copyright © 2024 FashionNetwork.com All rights reserved.