The Maxmara world is reimagined every autumn, but its north star will always be the classic camel coat. And so its Milan show is a masterclass in the subtle navigation of fashion, adept in endlessly reinventing that piece into a look that fits the mood of the moment.
The details that told the story of this Maxmara collection were the pockets, the lipstick and the shoes. Maxmara’s last autumn collection, shown in Milan a year ago, opened with Gigi Hadid, dreamy-eyed and tousle-haired, clutching the front of her coat closed over a slip dress. It was a classic image, channelling that most blue-chip and untouchable of icons: Marilyn Monroe.
This time, by contrast, the mood was deliberately challenging. The models walked with their arms swinging, hands in bright leather gloves, or with one hand plunged into a huge patch pocket. The runway backdrop was a zigzagging flight of metal stairs, like a nightclub fire escape. (Golden and polished to a gleam, rather than chipped iron, of course. This is, after all, Milan fashion week.) Instead of Monroe’s wide eyes, there were owlish sunglasses. With their dark Josephine Baker lips and outsize sunglasses, sequin dance dresses and bright Bauhaus stripes glimpsed under the coats, the women could have been emerging from a Weimar republic cabaret.
The camel coat of this season has a fuzzy, teddy bear fur finish or a nubbly, boiled-wool one rather than plush, giftbox-fresh cashmere. The look is about scale: these coats are cut to appear, by illusion of tailoring, as if they are eternally about to slip off your shoulders.
To a soundtrack of a smoky French jazz singer, Maxmara’s creative director Ian Griffiths sent out a collection heady with au courant sexed-up androgyny. There were straight-cut jumpsuits with daringly deep-dipped necklines, and hot pants under long coats. Sensible lace-up brogues came high heeled and in glittered gold, worn with fishnet tights.
Griffiths name-checked “sachlich [down-to-earth] heroines” such as the Russian constructivist artist Lyubov Popova. The boilersuits such pioneering women wore were translated into “patch pockets big enough for a set of tools (or a reel of film).”
Milan fashion week continues with shows from Versace and Giorgio Armani over the weekend.
