How well do you ever really know a city? Even the most treasured small towns of childhood are not without their secrets. Shanghai is young, by Chinese standards, and its position—perpetually perched on the edge of reinvention; one of the largest cities in the world in a nation that’s jockeying for a likely role as the next great superpower—makes it occasionally unrecognizable, even to its intimates. There can be something menacing about all that growth, according to Liu Wei, a Beijing-based artist whose work tends to fixate on the relentless, sometimes terrifying march of human progress. Max Mara had enlisted him for both a special capsule collection and to create the set design for its Pre-Fall 2017 spectacular set in Shanghai’s Exhibition Center.
Imagine if “all of the world’s great conurbations merged,” the show notes read, meaning, in the age of the Internet and unfettered access, a way of life that’s at once profoundly un- and hyper-real; one part London, one part The Matrix (in reality, likely closer to Reddit). That not-quite place is “Monopolis,” say Max Mara and Liu Wei, and if you ask the label’s creative director, Ian Griffiths, even as you’ve put the conceit of an imaginary city aside, they were talking about some seriously new territory.
Griffiths took cues from film noir heroines like Joan Crawford and Lauren Bacall (with some shades of Blade Runner tossed in for good measure) for Pre-Fall, and with them, a certain smoky, sharp-eyed glamour made evident in 1940s shoulders and cinched waists, ruched tulle skirts and tailored trousers, chunky-heeled reptile-skin pumps and smooth leather knee-high lace-up boots. For a house known for its neat edges—and there were still plenty of those, put to their advantage in more riffs on the brand’s cult-favorite classic coats—embracing Liu Wei’s intentionally unfinished ends became something of a point of pride. This was especially true for Griffiths, who considers himself to be both a “Max Mara expert” and something of a disciple. (“If I tried to start my own line, under my own name, it would end up looking exactly like Max Mara,” Griffiths said early on in an interview.) This makes him essentially the custodian of the house’s legacy. “[Liu Wei and I] produced something that has given me, as a designer, a new direction that I can incorporate now as part of the Max Mara identity,” said Griffiths. “This sense of rawness that is, I think, completely modern . . . this sense of imperfection that I think signifies the way people want to be today; they want to be glamorous and they want luxury, but they don’t want to be perfect or as if they were trying to be perfect.” (To those who find even trousers too try-hard, the collection also offered what the press notes called “glam new sweats.”)
The capsule collaboration—11 pieces inspired by topographic maps both real and imagined, lovingly crafted in laser-cut alpaca, wool, and cashmere—was the brand’s first foray into the world of see-now-buy-now and was to be displayed and made available for purchase in stores around the world the same night that it had premiered on the runway. A feat of progress, to be sure, but one the label saw as more of a trend than a new tenet. “The current system works very well for us,” said Griffiths. “Our customers are quite happy to reflect on what they see on the runway for six months or so, and by the time they get to the stores, they really know the look. [See-now-buy-now] is a big opportunity to tap into at the moment . . . . We just wouldn’t like to build our business around it.”
But back to what they do want to build their business around: timeless clothes that make women feel ready for anything. “Max Mara is completely about the city,” Griffiths said, by which he meant both the city in Liu Wei’s sense, as a phenomenon, and the city as a reality—not always comfortable, occasionally glamorous, always improved by good tailoring. The former looks at how expansion can create disorientation and confusion, even fear, said Griffiths—and considering the sociopolitical climate across the world these days, that feels rather prescient—but on the Max Mara side of things, at least, the take remains optimistic: “Liu Wei’s work sees the city as a dangerous place,” said Griffiths. “Max Mara sees it as a place where you need to be, where you can succeed, where you feel like you’re able to conquer.” All you need is the right coat.
