September 20, 2018 |
They say history belongs to the victors, actually it belongs to the writers and for millennia they’ve been men, telling stories and relating history from a male perspective. Max Mara’s Ian Griffiths called for a readjustment using as inspiration the first female translation of the Odyssey by Emily Wilson, Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad and MaxMara’s own design superwoman Anne-Marie Barreta, who ruled the house in the eighties.
Translated into clothes that meant a wardrobe for strong women (the show notes called them Amazons), made up of twisted draped pencil skirts, one shoulder shirts high shine sheath dresses and strong shouldered tailoring. Griffith explored head-to-toe dressing with looks that came in single matching tones of sand, ochre, yellow or white. The tailoring was on point. You can’t get more classic than a double breasted trouser suit but the MaxMara cut was slouchy on top, skinny below, creating an easy, modern silhouette. Griffith added a roomy pea coat on top to reference the bold strong shoulders proportions of Anne-Marie Baretta. The models even showed off the looks with their hand on their hips as they would have done in her day. The house excels at coats – even in summer they are on point, with long lightweight kimono sleeve numbers, paper thin leather ponchos and a belted black trench with a deep ruffled a hem that could double as evening wear. MaxMara has it covered.
Photographs by Jason Lloyd-Evans.
