“The longest is the loveliest,” are the final words of Truman Capote’s chapter on Ischia in Local Color, his little-remembered early-phase 1950-published travel book. What Capote was describing as long and lovely was the spring that languorously blossomed into summer during his four-month stay on this volcanically lush island, a paradise that is geographically far larger than Capri but which has long been overshadowed by its Gulf of Naples neighbor’s eternally chichi reputation.
This evening’s Max Mara resort show, inspired by Capote’s voyage to the less-traveled-to island, was the first-ever big-ticket fashion show held here. The precise location was a castellated hotel named the Mezzatorre, once a villa owned by Luchino Visconti, whose position on a promontory overlooking its own turquoise-watered, parasol-lined private bay would make any film director itch to shout, “Action.” Out on that water bobbed the very same New York 32 yacht that starred in The Talented Mr. Ripley, its hull since repainted to a perfect shade of Tiffany.
In fact, so picturesque and Slim Aarons–ishly beguiling was the setup here that you felt almost nervous on behalf of this Ian Griffiths–designed Max Mara collection—could the clothes possibly live up to the context? Thanks to that Capote starting point and the long and languid route Griffiths’s thinking followed from it, however, by the time his opening look appeared—a pale beige version of the house’s landmark 101801 coat cut not in camel cashmere but a treated “uncreasable” jersey, over a dress with a high and wide detachable collar, and the strapped espadrilles that ran through the show—the collection was 100% checked in to this destination.
Capote spent six years writing In Cold Blood for The New Yorker, while by contrast Vogue Runway prefers its reviews be filed within three hours of showtime. So, in brief, the dots Griffiths joined began with Capote’s juvenile phase here, then connected ahead to his establishment as a social witness and chronicler meets claqueur to the 1950s and ’60s most beautiful and privileged, most particularly his “Swans.” Griffiths then zeroed in specifically on “The Last Swan” Marella Agnelli, the noble-born wife of Italy’s ultimate industrial superhero Gianni, who like most of the itinerant superrich of the time would linger at the Plaza Athénée or the Ritz in Paris during couture before flying south to await delivery of their new season garments, often on the Agnelli yacht in the Gulf of Naples. The Athénée association and its flower-filled façade gave Griffiths the geranium color story that fizzed through this collection between more sober phases, while Capote sparked a train of thought that enabled those clothes to live so finely here.
By referencing that past in the repeated gathered skirting or by-association-related frills on the back of jackets, Griffiths traced a patently midcentury punctuation mark. Cashmere caftans, presented in four colors and slit high at the side, were both sumptuous and sexy and almost retrograde in their luxuriousness: showpieces. By contrast, adaptations of the house teddy coat into a bomber, or trench coat caftans, or wide-armed shirting in cotton oxford, or a fantastic long jersey dress, or a just-as-fantastic shorter version that looked like the most glamorous tennis dress ever…these all seemed like retail bangers. Those wistfully vintage couture volumes and motifs combined with sportswear details and contemporary fabrications created a collection you could easily see the influencer-heavy audience of 93 getting into (in fact they’re probably changing into it right now).
Other key details included a Max Mara referencing map print, and in the geranium section a pattern into which was cannily integrated a “tigrotto,” in honor of the year of the tiger. The bag section ran from buckets in basket weave to leather-edged rattan tote/beach bags you could see becoming more and more lovely with each passing year.
Right now the Max Mara guests are hitting dinner down by the pool and the edge of that bay, and the mozzarella-crazed gulls that patrol the hotel all day have stopped their shrieking for the evening. This well-thought-out collection, showed slowly and lovingly here today, was part of a broader presentation that has been long and lovely to witness: a reframing of travel and the clothing to wear while doing it as something relishably special, something to be lingered over, and something long to be loved.
