Stars out for Max Mara show that offers light touch in the heat
An hour's drive north of Naples, the baroque Royal Palace of Caserta, which took nearly a century to build, gives even Versailles a run for its money. Max Mara's front row was not too shabby either — Sharon Stone and Gwyneth Paltrow were among the celebrities in attendance.
For the select number of luxury brands that can afford to stage them, cruise shows, which take place outside of the main fashion schedule and in unusual locations, are in part about muscle-flexing. Yet it is not only that.
The American actresses Joey King, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sharon Stone and Hayley Atwell were on the front row the Royal Palace of Caserta, below, which offered a breathtaking backdrop to the show
THOMAS RAZZANO/BFA.COM/SHUTTERSTOCK
MICHAEL RUNKEL/ROBERTHARDING
The resultant collections have turned into one of their most important commercial propositions, typically staying in stores longer than any other; for six months, from November to May. So Max Mara's apparent flight of fancy was, in truth, anything but.
• How to wear khaki — the most versatile shade of summer
This is not to say that Ian Griffiths, the brand's longstanding British creative director, had not had some fun. His inspiration, he said before the show, was the mid-century Italian actress Silvana Mangano, most notably her memorable appearance in Bitter Rice, dressed for the Italian paddy field in shorts and a hat. 'It was women like her that gave the world the idea of what Italian style was,' he said. The film came out in 1949, two years before Max Mara was founded.
The opening look was a newfangled take on the three-piece suit — jacket, shorts and bustier top — worn with a trilby and leather waders, all of it rendered in Max Mara's signature camel. Good luck in the paddy field wearing that.
• How seven women stay stylish in the city heat
The tailoring throughout the show had been 'lightened', Griffiths said, via his collaboration with the Neapolitan tailor Vincenzo Cuomo, a man who knows how to make a suit that works in 32C.
The palette was still typically Max Mara
ALENA ZAKIROVA/GETTY IMAGES
ALENA ZAKIROVA/GETTY IMAGES
ALENA ZAKIROVA/GETTY IMAGES
A second local hook-up was with the tie maker E Marinella. Prints from its archive, also from 1951, had been retooled over playsuits and full skirts.
Max Mara's stock in trade is coats, which might seem a tricky task in southern Italy in June. But a fluffy number in the same pink found in Neapolitan ice cream sent a shiver down the spine.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Cruz Beckham channels dad David's skills with poolside football tricks
Watch as Cruz Beckham channels his father David 's football skills with some impressive poolside tricks. Posting a range of holiday snaps on Instagram on Monday (18 August), the 20-year-old can be seen doing kick-ups in front of a pool at sunset, whilst another clip shows him kicking the ball to a friend across the water. Cruz had been holidaying with his family across France and Italy, where they have been enjoying time on their £16million yacht. Eldest brother Brooklyn was nowhere to be seen, with the family reportedly no longer on speaking terms with the 26-year-old. Last week, the famous family were noticeably absent as he and his wife, Nicola Peltz, renewed their marriage vows just three years after their wedding.
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Basic Instinct writer promised 'anti-woke' reboot days before Sharon Stone launched rant at project
The controversial reboot of Sharon Stone 's 1 992 erotic thriller Basic Instinct will be 'anti-woke' as the film's writer seeks to hit back at modern day 'political correctness' Joe Eszterhas, 80, who also penned Flashdance and Showgirls, recently revealed he had been paid $4million by Amazon MGM Studios to pen the new script and hoped Stone would co-star in the film - days before the actress slammed the project. Eszterhas told The Wrap: 'It means that dialogue-wise she will be open about her sexuality, character-wise she will be raunchy at times, funny, iconoclastic and all of those things. 'I can't talk very much about the storyline at this point because much of it isn't formed yet. It begins in 2025. The Catherine Trammel character I will write and I hope Sharon [Stone] agrees to do the picture because I thought she was brilliant the first time out. 'In my reboot she is not the star of the picture but she is the main co-star of the picture. It's about the serial killers. It's about copycats. There's a demonic element to it that I think will be spooky.' He added that a 'segment of the population has had it with woke culture', saying: 'The absurdities come when a woman who is sexual and open about her sexuality, you know, the culture that that I grew up in would describe that woman as a nymphomaniac. If a man did the same thing he would be a stud.' The writer's comments last month came weeks before Stone, 67, lambasted the reboot during a chat on The Today Show this week. She said: 'It goes the way the one that I was in. I would just say, '"Why do you do it?' Go ahead, but good f*****g luck.'' 'I'm at that stage in my life where I already retired once. And I already died a couple times. I'm like, what are you going to do? Kill me again? Go ahead.' Stone reprised her role as femme fatale Catherine Trammel in panned 2006 sequel, Basic Instinct 2. Basic Instinct first hit screens in 1992 and sees Detective Nick (Michael Douglas) investigate the brutal murder of Johnny Boz (Bill Cable). The blockbuster follows the police officer, who points suspicion towards Tramell, the victim's girlfriend. Catherine manages to seduce Nick into falling in love with her. Basic Instinct features a well-known scene where Catherine is being quizzed by police. Amid the bombardment of questions, she distracts them when she uncrosses then recrosses her legs, leaving the men flustered seeing as she was underwear-free at the time. Last year Sharon said that the iconic and controversial interrogation scene now seems 'very ordinary' compared to raunchy present-day films. Appearing at the Taormina Film Festival, Sharon said - per Deadline -that while the scene was considered X-rated at the time, nowadays it would have lost its shock factor. She said:'[at the time] it seemed like a scandal, and now it seems very, very ordinary. 'I think that now that women are writing, directing, producing, filming and more and more a part of filmmaking, films are less about men writing films about their fantasies of the way women are 'And actresses are less asked to portray the male fantasy, and then critics are less asked to tell us if we fulfilled the male fantasy or not. It's more, are we fulfilling the human condition?' She previously told The Guardian the film ruined her image, saying: 'They said I was just like the character, like, somehow, they found someone who was just like that, and she slipped into the clothes, and it was magically recorded on film. 'Then, as it played everywhere on the globe for the next 20 years, people started to go, "Do you think this really has anything to do with the fact that we thought we saw up her skirt?" I think maybe it's actually a pretty good performance." 'So it went from me being nominated for a Golden Globe and people laughing when they called my name in the room to people giving me standing ovations and making me the woman of the year... 'And then I got nothing. I never got any more parts. Why? I really wish you could tell me," she said. "Sometimes I think it was because I was too good.'
Times
4 hours ago
- Times
My night at the extraordinary Tuscan home of a Renaissance artist
It is a roasting summer day in Florence. Down in the basin of the Arno, steam seems to rise from the baking streets and sweat pours from pores hitherto unknown. I sigh: what hell people put themselves through to see the Duomo. I, too, can see the Duomo, but I'm not down there. I'm up in the hills, wringing out my hair — not with sweat, but from a swim. I text a friend, Daniela, who lives in Florence. Come here after work! There's a breeze! It's a centuries-old routine for Florentines: when the heat hits, decamp to the hills. About 500 years ago the owner of this villa was probably sending a similar message to his city friend. His name was Ridolfo Ghirlandaio; his friend, Raphael. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Ghirlandaio family — paterfamilias Domenico, his brothers David and Benedetto, and his son, Ridolfo, ran one of the foremost artist workshops in Florence. Domenico was a big beast of the Renaissance: Botticelli was his rival, Michelangelo his apprentice; Da Vinci, it's thought, studied Domenico's Last Supper before creating his own. The family — whose real name was Bigordi, but took Ghirlandaio from the crown-like women's garlands (ghirlande) that had made Domenico's father wealthy — became an artistic dynasty. Ridolfo was mates with Raphael, who invited him to Rome to work for the Pope. Ridolfo refused, wrote Giorgio Vasari, the Renaissance painter and art historian — he couldn't relinquish his view of the Duomo. I can see why. The Ghirlandaios' workshop was in Florence, but their hearts were at Colle Ramole, in the olive-strewn hills four and a half miles southeast, the city unfurling below around Brunelleschi's soaring terracotta dome. It became their haven — a villa and estate, with a furnace to smelt the tesserae for Domenico and David's mosaic of the Annunciation above the Duomo's side door. When Domenico died at 45, Ridolfo took over. He frescoed their family chapel: the Virgin and Child above the altar with two saints. Above them: two rainbow-winged putti. On either side, portraits of the family: Ridolfo and his son, his wife holding a baby, and his late dad, immortalised in ruddy middle-aged eternity. It's the only self-portrait by a Renaissance artist in their home, murmurs Marco Cecchi as we come face to face with Ridolfo, who stares us down — what are you doing in my house? Sure, Raphael is said to have painted the Virgin and Child on his teenage bedroom wall in Urbino; Sofonisba Anguissola's portrait of her father and siblings hung in her Cremona home, according to Vasari. But a selfie, in situ? This might be the only one. • Discover our full guide to Italy Cecchi, who grew up one hill away, is the guardian of this great patrimony. In 2010 his family bought the crumbling estate. They planned to turn it into flats, but decided that would ruin the history. 'I didn't [initially] realise how important this was,' he says of the house's heritage. 'I consider myself lucky to be the custodian, but see the real danger if it had gone to someone else.' So they pivoted, restoring the villa, converting the five outhouses into cottages, and renting it out as Dimora (home of) Ghirlandaio in 2018. At first they rented it for exclusive use only. Six houses, up to 40 people — the prices were stratospheric enough that Cecchi won't share them. Staff whisper of tech billionaires à deux, and American lawyers private-jetting their way over to play dolce vita for their birthdays. The cradle of the Renaissance had become a party pad for modern-day Gatsbys. Until now. This summer the estate has been broken up, so you can rent a single villa at Dimora Ghirlandaio for a single night. Instead of tens of thousands to get through the gate, you can now stump up £520 for the Limonaia suite overlooking the Renaissance-style lawn. Cecchi amiably admits it's to fill up slow periods — those filthy-rich Americans prefer June, July, September and October. But I — one of the first plebs through its doors — like to think of it as reclaiming the space for ordinary people. The idea is to keep some dates restricted for buyouts, open others for single bookings, and offer last-minute breaks where available. Right now there's availability throughout August and November, plus pockets in September and October. It'll be a steep learning curve, not least for the guests, unaccustomed to such luxury. I merrily went swimming in what I thought was a pool, only to be gently told it was a water feature. Of course it was — the real pool was unmistakable. A long, infinity edge melted into the estate's endless olive groves, fringed by lavender and jasmine (the grounds are an open-air perfumery). Two orange trees sprout from the centre — a nice way to split the kids' side from the adult depths, I thought, until Cecchi explained that they were there to recall Domenico's famous Cenacolo, or Last Supper fresco, in Florence's Ognissanti church. That's the joy of Dimora Ghirlandaio. Of course, it's gorgeous — but then, plenty of Tuscan villas are. Sure, it's extra-cushy — it's been designed to please billionaires, after all. But it's the history that makes this special. Cecchi has turned the estate into a homage to the family. Each of the five rooms in the main villa, where I stay — wondering if mine, overlooking the Duomo, was where Domenico once slept — is named after a brother; in another, they sport the names of pigments the family used. The walls are painted in soft mints, greys, peaches and pinky-reds — colours that Ridolfo used in the chapel. The floors are terracotta, fired at nearby Impruneta (just like the Duomo), while the fireplaces are in pietra serena, the stone that lines the Uffizi porticoes. Above the gate is the Bigordi coat of arms: three spheres, not unlike that of Domenico's friend Lorenzo de' Medici. My favourite (and the cheapest) cottage, the two-bedroom La Bottega, is supposedly the site of the family workshop. Today there's a desk overlooking the Duomo — just as inspiring 500 years on. The other villas have been crafted from stables and outbuildings. There are original fittings galore — chunky beams, a two-bull yoke — and all except La Limonaia have a strip of private garden. • 28 of the best villas in Tuscany The estate used to be self-sufficient — the Bigordis produced wine, oil and cereals — and it still is, in the sense that there's no need to leave the property. Daniela comes up for aperitivo, the sky turning a Ridolfo-esque pink behind the Duomo, church bells chiming in the distance. Dinner is in the greenhouse-like restaurant, or overlooking the olives. You can do painting classes, wine tastings, cooking classes. We taste the estate's olive oil with farm manager Clemente Pellegrini Strozzi — a descendant of another Renaissance dynasty, and a man so passionate about olive oil ('It's like making a painting') that he talks to his trees. The more I learn about the Ghirlandaio family, the more I covet their art. Dimora offers a Ghirlandaio tour of Florence — Domenico's frescoes in Santa Maria Novella, Ognissanti and Santa Trinita — but I want to see the family's works in the landscape in which they lived. Each villa has a book about the history of Colle Ramole, which also lists the locations of every nearby work. That was my Sunday settled. At the Abbazia dei Santi Salvatore e Lorenzo in Badia a Settimo, just over nine miles away, Domenico's Annunciation — two roundels over the main arch — powers me through Mass ( In the sacristy afterwards, a priest silently flicks the lights onto a Nativity and Deposition — the grass beneath the cross is as fluffy as Dimora's lawn. In San Donnino, once an Arno-side village, now a suburb of Florence, is the church of San Andrea and two frescoes: Domenico's delicate Madonna and Child with two deliciously camp saints, and the Baptism of Christ, thought to be by his brother, David, as it's not quite as good (sorry David). The churchwarden, Lorenza, ushers me into an adjoining wing. It's the Museo d'Arte Sacra di San Donnino, a collection of Renaissance art that tells the story of the flood-prone village — most of these paintings were irreparably damaged in 1966. A St Roch by the Ghirlandaios looks desultory, his robes melted clean away by floodwater. Lorenza needs to go — it's Sunday lunchtime — but gives me her number, promising to open up again if I return. You wouldn't get that in Florence (free; At Badia a Passignano, 15 miles south, six Benedictine monks still live in the monastery where David and Domenico frescoed a Last Supper in 1476. The superior, Jinsho Kuriakose, takes us on a tour (by donation; Past three swashbuckling archangels painted by Ridolfo's protégé, Michele Tosini, we head to the refectory. This was the scene of a battle of wills, says Father Jinsho. David complained to the monks that they weren't feeding them enough; when the abbot refused to give them more, the brothers downed tools and left, making sure the fresco looked decent enough for the oblivious monks to pay them in full. I imagine them flouncing back to Colle Ramole as I drive back past an Antinori vineyard. I see that same hauteur in Ridolfo's face the next morning, when I bid him farewell ('Is he glaring at us or smiling?' Strozzi had asked when we'd popped in post-oil tasting). He's inscrutable: longish hair bobbed, Tuscan nose, eyes boring into my soul, while Domenico stares from above, lip imperceptibly curled. This is our house, they seem to whisper. And it always will be, I want to reply — but I'm delighted that Cecchi has brought you back to life. This article contains affiliate links that will earn us revenue Julia Buckley was a guest of Dimora Ghirlandaio, which has B&B doubles from £520 or villas from £781 ( The chapel can be viewed on request. Fly to Florence
