Latest news with #cruisecollection
Times
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Stars out for Max Mara show that offers light touch in the heat
On Tuesday night in Italy, Max Mara showed its latest cruise collection in surroundings that can only be described as epic. 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/ 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.
Vogue Arabia
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Vogue Arabia
A Look at the Louis Vuitton Resort 2026 Collection
Way back in 2000, at the very dawn of the 21st century, Nicolas Ghesquière came to the southern French town of Avignon to visit the historic Palais des Papes, which dates from the 14th century. He was there to see a millennium-themed art exhibition, featuring the likes of a Bill Viola installation and a dance performance from Pina Bausch. All of this took place in what is the biggest medieval structure in Europe, a onetime seat of Western Christianity, but which is now better known as a UNESCO site (celebrating its 30th anniversary of that status this year) and home for many decades to a yearly experimental theater festival. Ghesquière was captivated by the place, which isn't exactly surprising: Magical things tend to happen in his mind when history, culture, and his own particular brand of creativity and intellectual curiosity collide. Now, some 25 years later, here he is, back in town, with his Louis Vuitton 2026 cruise collection: a fantastic 45-look show which offered a masterly meditation on everything from decorative ancient religious tracts to glammy rock stars, medieval heraldic costuming to the myth of Excalibur , with references galore to King Arthur and the Lady of the Lake. I'd have loved to have asked Ghesquière if he thought Nicholas Clay in the 1981 Excalibur movie was as hot as I did, but I managed to hold back. What I do know is this: That the Bausch performance helped him envisage how to show this cruise collection. 'I wanted to put the audience on stage,' Ghesquière said at a pre-show preview. 'This idea of an audience seeing everything from the point of view of the performers. The places I have shown the cruise in the past, like Kyoto, usually have a personal connection,' he went on to say. 'It's rare I ever find a location from scouting. It's always personal, then it goes through this twisted way of mine thinking about fashion [laughs]. When [famed French actor and theater director] Jean Vilar came here in 1947 to perform, he said [of Palais des Papes], 'it's impossible to do theater here, so let's do theater here!' And I love that! I'm not saying it's impossible to do fashion here, but it's the first time that they've done anything like this.' Ghesquière, it has to be said, is no stranger to making the impossible possible. It has rather been a hallmark of his time at the maison for the last 10-plus years: The elevation of the everyday via couture-level artisanal craft and technological experimentation melded into clothes which are deeply rooted in reality; maybe the most inventive and idiosyncratic notion of reality, but a reality nonetheless. It's a wardrobe of leather jackets, artisanal knits, kicky short skirts, flowing dresses, and accessories with plenty of attitude, like this cruise's lavishly embroidered flat peep-toe boots, and the Alma handbag in striped bands of exotic leathers or (be still my beating heart, because this was my personal favorite) with scrolling flowers taken from religious manuscripts dating from the Middle Ages.
