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Style Edit: Max Mara's autumn/winter 2025 collection takes inspiration from Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, bringing the bleak beauty of Yorkshire to the catwalk

Style Edit: Max Mara's autumn/winter 2025 collection takes inspiration from Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, bringing the bleak beauty of Yorkshire to the catwalk

Max Mara has become a go-to brand for powerful modern women thanks to its luxurious classics that transcend time and trends. For its autumn/winter 2025 collection, the brand channels another two formidable females, but from the past: 19th-century novelists Emily and Charlotte Brontë. It recasts the famous heroines of their respective novels, Catherine Earnshaw in Wuthering Heights and the titular protagonist of Jane Eyre.
Victorian influences could be seen in the very 2025 silhouettes. Photo: Handout
The show, during Milan Fashion Week, featured a series of sleek, self-assured, elegant looks influenced by the Victorian era but designed for modern-day wearers. A new romantic mood could also be felt in the collection's blend of the classic with a touch of neo-gothic chic and urban rusticity.
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Rich, autumnal shades dominated the Max Mara autumn/winter 2025 collection. Photo: Handout
Coats – a Max Mara signature – appeared in various guises, from greatcoats with military overtones, frock coats and deluxe parkas to capes and generous, enveloping clutch coats. Antique breeches were re-envisaged as modern trousers with soft pleats. The waistcoat also made a comeback, both with new shrunken proportions and as a country-style gilet.
Coats were a highlight of the Max Mara autumn/winter 2025 collection. Photo: Handout
The colour palette recalled the Brontës' native Yorkshire, as did the fabrics, which included tweed and Mouliné yarns knitted into intricately shaped, Victorian era-inspired sweaters for a modern take on femininity.
The Max Mara autumn/winter 2025 collection was filled with dramatic, sweeping pieces. Photo: Handout
While Max Mara took inspiration from the Brontës' untamed heroines, sister brand Sportmax looked to the women that make up its ecosystem: the artisans, designers, colleagues, mothers and friends who infuse the brand's intellectual design language with a sense of realism.

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Interview with Susan Fang: on the fashion designer's flowy and colourful looks that evoke a pastoral innocence, and her Dolce & Gabbana collaboration at Milan Fashion Week
Interview with Susan Fang: on the fashion designer's flowy and colourful looks that evoke a pastoral innocence, and her Dolce & Gabbana collaboration at Milan Fashion Week

South China Morning Post

time14-04-2025

  • South China Morning Post

Interview with Susan Fang: on the fashion designer's flowy and colourful looks that evoke a pastoral innocence, and her Dolce & Gabbana collaboration at Milan Fashion Week

In an industry as cutthroat as fashion, where profit margins take precedence over personality and greed often wins out over generosity, Susan Fang – both the designer and her eponymous brand – feels like a breath of fresh air. Long fascinated by her ethereal designs, which I can only describe as looking and feeling like billowy, colourful cotton candy sculptures come to life, I'm pleased to find Fang is equally effusive, energetic and bubbly in person when we catch up during her recent visit to Hong Kong with Cocktail Select Shop, a bohemian-esque boutique with locations across the city. A sample of Susan Fang's billowy, cotton candy-esque designs. Photo: Handout 'Actually a lot of the brands here, I also like myself,' Fang muses in the middle of Cocktail's Pacific Place store, surrounded by dozens of her floral fairy-tale creations – a fitting setting for the woman who has infused fresh new magic into the term boho chic. 'Even as a student, I've always liked to go to really selective shops that show craft – brands that have a lot of storytelling and emotion. It's not about luxury as a status.' Advertisement Storytelling and emotion, inspired by the designer's immediate surroundings growing up – a vast array of cultural influences acquired across years spent everywhere from the United States to the United Kingdom, Canada and mainland China – inform the nomadic, nymphlike beauty which the Susan Fang brand has become so well-known for. A graduate of Central Saint Martins, Fang launched her eponymous brand in 2017 and was shortlisted for the LVMH Prize a mere two years later. Now based in London, the designer travels frequently to Shanghai, where she also staged regular runway shows before making her Milan Fashion Week debut earlier this year, supported by Dolce & Gabbana's young designers programme – alumni of which include talented contemporaries like Tomo Koizumi and Sohee Park of Miss Sohee. A model wears a striped knit top and a gauzy, flowerlike skirt by Susan Fang. Photo: Handout 'We really wanted to show the story that's true to our hearts,' Fang says of the brand's autumn/winter 2025 collection, which was inspired by the invisible element of air in nature – the designer's signature 'air-weave and 'air-whirl' techniques minimise waste by using small strips of fabric to create her voluminous silhouettes – juxtaposed with the similarly intangible quality of our memories. Several stand-out looks, including one showstopping rainbow number which encapsulates the lightness and lightweight airiness of the brand, played on this motif by floating down the runway in a mesmerising blur or appearing suspended in mid-air. Susan Fang made her Milan Fashion Week debut earlier this year through Dolce & Gabbana's young designers programme. Photo: Dolce & Gabbana 'Even in this luxury world, we can still connect with something that's very pure,' says Fang, who certainly speaks with a kind of purity and childlike innocence which feels enviable. It's that exact same play on purity – of fashion, fabrics, the essence of nature and human nature – which has quietly fuelled her meteoric rise over the years. 'Our Milan show was about the happiness of memories that creates us,' the designer says of the collection's various prints, which were recreations of her mother's own paintings. 'So we connected with my mom's memories, Chinese arts and cultural memories. It's about embracing the moment and appreciating all the memories in our past from our parents or people we love that become a powerful part of us.' Susan Fang's Milan show was inspired by the theme of memories. Photo: Dolce & Gabbana In that sense, Fang's heritage serves as more than just fodder for future collections – it's an invisible string which firmly establishes the designer's own place in the pantheon of her culture and the longer lineage of artists who have preceded her. Like dreams passed down from generation to generation, Fang's designs are living proof that the simplest things are often the most difficult to achieve; her deceivingly carefree creations are far from effortless, but instead testament to the technical know-how and artistry she's inherited and built upon.

Drink in Focus: 1881 at DarkSide
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South China Morning Post

time25-03-2025

  • South China Morning Post

Drink in Focus: 1881 at DarkSide

While it is arguably Kowloon's best bar – it's even cheekily named after the peninsula's nickname – it's taken DarkSide a somewhat surprising number of years to create a menu celebrating local landmarks and icons. That's been rectified: enter the establishment's latest annual menu, Timeless Tales: Flavours of Kowloon's Legacy. Advertisement As one has come to expect of a menu from the Rosewood Hong Kong bar, the precision of the concept is equalled only by its execution. The drinks are delicate, clear and feel tailored to local palates, and it's very easy to enjoy several concoctions in one sitting. Interior of DarkSide at Rosewood Hong Kong. Photo: DarkSide On the menu, which is designed like a film clapper board, you'll find libations dedicated to the old Kai Tak airport, the old Yau Ma Tei Theatre, martial arts legend Bruce Lee and Tsim Sha Tsui's historic Former Marine Police Headquarters Compound, more commonly known as the 1881 building. The latter serves as the inspiration for the 1881 cocktail. 'The 1881 Heritage building, with its stunning Victorian architecture and rich history, stands as a testament to Hong Kong's colonial past and cultural evolution,' says Rosewood Hong Kong's recently arrived director of bars Bob Louison. The facade of the former Marine Police Headquarters in 2006, back when the surrounding area was being excavated to build the wider 1881 Heritage site. Photo: SCMP Archives The building is one of the four oldest government buildings still standing in the city. It is situated on what was the coastline when it was built, before decades of land reclamation took place; DarkSide sits on the current coastline. It served as the headquarters for the Marine Police from 1884 to 1996, when the force was absorbed into the Hong Kong Police Force and its headquarters transferred to Sai Wan Ho on Hong Kong Island. Advertisement Unsurprisingly elements of the sea dominate the cocktail. 'We achieve this [flavour] using kombu, [sea] lettuce brine and salted onion cordial,' says Louison. 'A smokiness is added using mescal. It tastes savoury and finds inspiration from the salted lemon tea you find in Hong Kong; the brine really brings out not only the salty, but a lot of the sweetness as well.'

Style Edit: Max Mara's autumn/winter 2025 collection takes inspiration from Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, bringing the bleak beauty of Yorkshire to the catwalk
Style Edit: Max Mara's autumn/winter 2025 collection takes inspiration from Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, bringing the bleak beauty of Yorkshire to the catwalk

South China Morning Post

time10-03-2025

  • South China Morning Post

Style Edit: Max Mara's autumn/winter 2025 collection takes inspiration from Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, bringing the bleak beauty of Yorkshire to the catwalk

Max Mara has become a go-to brand for powerful modern women thanks to its luxurious classics that transcend time and trends. For its autumn/winter 2025 collection, the brand channels another two formidable females, but from the past: 19th-century novelists Emily and Charlotte Brontë. It recasts the famous heroines of their respective novels, Catherine Earnshaw in Wuthering Heights and the titular protagonist of Jane Eyre. Victorian influences could be seen in the very 2025 silhouettes. Photo: Handout The show, during Milan Fashion Week, featured a series of sleek, self-assured, elegant looks influenced by the Victorian era but designed for modern-day wearers. A new romantic mood could also be felt in the collection's blend of the classic with a touch of neo-gothic chic and urban rusticity. Advertisement Rich, autumnal shades dominated the Max Mara autumn/winter 2025 collection. Photo: Handout Coats – a Max Mara signature – appeared in various guises, from greatcoats with military overtones, frock coats and deluxe parkas to capes and generous, enveloping clutch coats. Antique breeches were re-envisaged as modern trousers with soft pleats. The waistcoat also made a comeback, both with new shrunken proportions and as a country-style gilet. Coats were a highlight of the Max Mara autumn/winter 2025 collection. Photo: Handout The colour palette recalled the Brontës' native Yorkshire, as did the fabrics, which included tweed and Mouliné yarns knitted into intricately shaped, Victorian era-inspired sweaters for a modern take on femininity. The Max Mara autumn/winter 2025 collection was filled with dramatic, sweeping pieces. Photo: Handout While Max Mara took inspiration from the Brontës' untamed heroines, sister brand Sportmax looked to the women that make up its ecosystem: the artisans, designers, colleagues, mothers and friends who infuse the brand's intellectual design language with a sense of realism.

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