Max Mara Atelier Fall 2025 Ready-to-Wear Collection
While very much about handicraft, Atelier is not about scale: instead it is a forum for Lusuardi and her team to R&D experimental forms of the garment that has defined Max Mara since day one, the coat. This season, the collection was presented adjacent to Max Mara mainline's Naples-based resort show by Ian Griffiths. This seemed a pragmatic way to put these made-to-order samples in the line of sight of some of the house's core clients.
Lusuardi greeted us next to a moodboard inhabited by photographs of Diana Vreeland, Maria Callas, and Jackie Kennedy, who the designer all identified as 'radical women.' Kennedy was photographed wearing a swim-cap while vacationing in Capri, and the set-up of the coated mannequins reflected that: each one wore ornately modern-looking (yet vintage), gorgeous mid-century swim-caps. The range of garments beneath them suggested that 'radical' was in this instance meant as a synonym of 'individualistic': the collection broadly saw classical couture shapes from the 1950s and 1960s, as well as 1980s silhouettes, processed through a lushly minimalist filter, and then—quite surprisingly—seasoned with a soupcon of grunginess that was telegraphed by a Kurt Cobain cameo.
Fabrics included double-faced cashmere, boiled and treated wool, zibeline-effect cashmere and delicately weathered leather. My absolute favorite was an oversized knee-length coat in a green-touched wool cashmere mix (I think) whose structural seaming and cinches were drawn from a type 3 denim jacket. An oversized hoodie-coat in washed cashmere had that zibeline-shagginess to the touch yet retained much more defined lines than its jersey prototype.
A long black coat was patterned in a gold check jacquard to reflect the design of Cobain's shirt and inject a spirit of nonconformism into this rarified worn milieu. A paneled piped and dyed shearling jacket and a slouchy short leather jacket were both minor masterpieces. Said Lusuardi: 'These coats are not for wearing to church. They are for wearing every day, with your own style, customized and personal.'
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