For Pre-Fall, Max Mara creative director Ian Griffiths has reworked the label’s best-selling 101801 coat. The original, which dates to 1981, is double-breasted with a generous-to-oversize fit and kimono sleeves. Decades later, you see it in the front rows at fashion shows. Griffiths’s reimagined versions include a cropped blouson, a belted redingote, and an A-line trapeze, all of them in superfine brushed cashmere wool and classic shades of navy, camel, and charcoal with nothing in the way of superfluous details. The fantasy scenario is having the financial wherewithal to order one of each.
Griffiths’s ready-to-wear for Pre-Fall hews similarly understated. There’s a mannish suit, a selection of streamlined all-in-ones and apron dresses, and, for a touch of whimsy, silk ruffles on everything from an evening tee to a maxi skirt. The one nod to trends is the archival logo, dating to 1958 and used on the Spring ’18 runway. It appears on an intarsia crewneck, as well as on a lean wool skirt and full trousers, and it’s thankfully subtle. Logos have become all but obligatory in current fashion, but they’re unnecessary at Max Mara, a brand that has managed something that scarce others have achieved: making an identifiable icon, the 101801, out of something that’s not only logo-free, but a model of luxurious restraint.
