The Max Mara team chose Grace Jones as a role model for Resort. The show notes mention a video for “I’m Not Perfect,” a gem from the mid-’80s that’s worth a watch on YouTube, with cameos by Andy Warhol, Tina Chow, Timothy Leary, Nile Rodgers, and Keith Haring. The collection’s large and small graphic patterns look like a riff on the Haring-painted black-on-white skirt Jones wears in the clip; IRL, they’re most compelling in micro form on thin, filmy layering pieces like tie-neck long-sleeved tees and leggings. Jean-Paul Goude was another Jones collaborator, and his iconic photographs of the performer apparently inspired the zesty colors of double-face cashmere coats. A coral that reversed to camel was striking.
As strong as Jones’s look was and is, the interpretation here was fairly subtle, and in that regard, a welcome development after the brand’s last runway show, where heavy-handed Bauhaus references weighed down or overshadowed the house signature sharp tailoring and outerwear. For Resort, Max Mara suiting spanned mannish pinstripes and a bright cherry red, made all the brighter by the matching silk blouse worn underneath the slim-cut jacket. We’d like to see Jones in that.
