A Utility Upgrade
Review of Max Mara Spring 2027 Fashion Show
By Angela Baidoo
The Max Mara woman has always exuded an air of fierce independence communicated through elegant composure. Her clothes are never fussy or unnecessarily adorned, instead the preference of creative director Ian Griffiths is to focus on clothing that is adaptive for all of lifes eventualities, without the compromising of a distinctively feminised (rather than feminine, so think contouring, whittled waists, and see-through fabrics) silhouette.
THE COLLECTION
THE VIBE
“More than ever, we are focussing on the simple mantra of real clothes for real women, because that’s what we do”Ian Griffiths, Creative Director, Max Mara
A far-off horizon was the destination in mind for next season, and backstage with Griffiths (where you have the chance to view his moodboards that are always a rich resource for where the designers mind has wandered) he revealed that 1930s circumnavigators – Amelia Earhart and Beryl Markham – who bucked the trend of what was expected of women at the time, formed part of a collective of muses for spring 2027.
Earhart is well-known for being the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, but Markham – who also flew across the Atlantic non-stop – was a true adventurer at heart. Born and raised in Kenya since the age of 4, the British-born pilot was also a horse trainer and breeder, hunter, and writer. These women were not just navigating unchartered territory by being the first, they were also navigating the prejudice that their feats would invite. In what would have been a society that believed a woman’s place was within the home.
Their boundary-less spirit drew a comparison to today’s modern woman who has to tackle societal pressures to settle down, legislative attacks on their bodily autonomy and the expectation that they should have and do it all. In seeking to assist this modern Max Mara woman to have her cake and eat it too, Grifiths explained how in the theme of the collection “Utility lux is the theme, and it looks at the value of clothes and asks what is luxury dressing and what can clothing do for you in your daily life.”
What the designer also saw when looking back at the “stout trunks and sturdy travel paraphernalia” of his chosen adventurers, was that there was still an element of style baked into what these women used to plot their escapades. The straps of the camera used by wildlife photographer Osa Johnson, or the adoption of clothes and traditional dress worn by the cultures encountered by explorer Freya Stark could be seen on the runway in the form of buckle fastenings and voluminous silhouettes.
The designers love of a skirt with maximum length certainly lent itself to the underlying theme, as it was a reflection of the ankle-legth skirts women wore in the 1930s. Though designed for modesty at the time they also encumbered movement – restricting freedom yet again – but the Max Mara brand is one of the few where women can procure a maxi skirt that is both stylish, durable, and freeing. And so including it in a collection based on exploration was still a rational choice.
The more practical design language of utilitarian dress was given the Max Mara makeover and almost disappeared within the mechanisms of tone-on-tone tailoring such as a cargo-vest cut to match the jacket with which it was being layered. Modularity after all is the essence of utility. The Safari jacket, and ‘Icon of Adventure’ as the notes put it, still has its practical uses even in city settings, and was the tough to the ethereally engineered knits, as well as feather light leathers. A juxtaposition that the designer explained further backstage, saying “If you think about the history of fashion, clothes that were derived from sporting activities such as hunting or fishing, they denoted prestige. Because if you wore a hunting jacket in London, then it probably meant you owned a country estate. And this associations with a non-conformist glamour have remained over time.”
THE WRAP UP
This was a collection for the woman navigating the “chaotic reality of contemporary life.” Still facing as many hurdles as her globe-trotting historical counterparts, she is tackling daily dilemmas with an elegant stride as spring 2027’s fluid elegance was toughened through Griffiths particular style of “corporate armour.”
This made what we saw on the runway feel like a nostalgic nod to a time of intrepid discovery and a recalling of the romantic notion of setting out into the world for horizons new.
