“Mr. Rossellini, I have seen your films and I liked them very much”, wrote Ingrid Bergman in a famous letter to the Italian director Roberto Rossellini in 1948, “if you need a Swedish actress who speaks English very well (…) I am ready to go and work for you”, continued the star of Casablanca. From this correspondence was born a few years later stromboli, one of the seminal films of Italian neorealism, in which Bergman walks around the Aeolian island wearing silk dresses and trench coats or printed scarves. An aesthetic that, along with all the neorealist imagery of the middle of the last century, was reinvented in Max Mara’s latest cruise show.
The collection, called Venere Vesuviana and presented in July in Reggia di Caserta (an hour from Naples), integrated the majesty of the decor with the close approach to the creations of Ian Griffiths, creative director of the company. “The inspiration comes from the origins of Italianness,” Griffiths explained after the parade on the Scalone d’Onore, the palace’s main staircase. “As we celebrated our 75th anniversary, I looked for memories of 1951 and that post-war period, when Italy recovered and became a major player in the economy. However, in terms of fashion and the evolution of Italian fashion as a cultural phenomenon, there were no big star designers like those that existed in Paris. Italian fashion was dominated by the women who wore it and the best place to find it is in the cinema of that time I watched Silvana Mangano or Sophia Loren, two examples of courageous, determined women, style, sensuality and voluptuousness.
In 2026, Max Mara celebrates its three-quarters of a century by positioning itself as the embodiment of Italian know-how. When, in the 1950s, the young Achille Maramotti observed that there was a niche between the fantasy of Parisian haute couture and the daily lives of women, few people could have guessed that his project would have such a long duration. Since then, the company she founded has been able to transfer ideas into clothes that women have made their own, combining fashion and technique, and shaping what we understand today as Italian style.
“I like to think that what defines Italian fashion lies precisely in this know-how, that is, in producing the product with love. Also in the ease of wearing the clothes, of having objects that last a long time and that are part of the wardrobe and, therefore, a little bit of yourself”, is how Maria Giulia Prezioso Maramotti, member of the board of directors of the group and one of the granddaughters of the founder, defined it shortly before the parade.
The company is one of the few major brands to remain in the hands of the founding family, which translates into freedom of movement, with a roadmap that does not have to satisfy markets and shareholders. The family character of the house is felt even during major events like that of Caserta, preceded the day before by a dinner in the port of Naples during which Gwyneth Paltrow and Alexa Chung ended up dancing tarantellas and waving napkins.
“The city inspires me because it is more Italian than any other city,” Griffiths noted, “just like you can buy 110% concentrated orange juice, Naples is 110% concentrated Italy. With all its eccentricity and madness, it is a beautiful city, a wonderful place.” Band scene like millionaire Naples (Eduardo De Filippo, 1950), The Orto of Naples (Vittorio De Sica, 1954) or yellow riso (Giuseppe De Santis, 1949) in which the brilliance of its protagonists is another character, a source of inspiration for Griffiths: “A cruise show is special because as a brand it allows us to better tell our story from a specific city. » In this case, it combines the Italian style and Neapolitan energy of the Palace of Caserta, whose construction was ordered in the 18th century by what would later become Charles III of Spain.
The alliance of two Italian sagas
Max Mara began traveling the world to present its cruise collections in 2018. Since then, the company has exhibited at its headquarters in Reggio Emilia, the Neues Museum in Berlin, Stockholm City Hall and the Doge’s Palace in Venice. For this season, the trip to the town of Partenope allowed them to explore a collaboration with the century-old house E. Marinella. “Fortunately, the label made in Italy “It continues to have great power,” explained Alessandro Marinella, the fourth generation of the brand, on the morning of the event. “It suggests the country’s unique history of craftsmanship, the skills that people have passed down from generation to generation. “It gives us a unique character.”
In this case, Marinella opened its enormous archives in which the designs have been kept practically since the year of its foundation, in 1914. “At Max Mara they were interested in those from 1951, the year of its creation, and among them they chose four that were used as models for various prints that are part of the collection,” added Maurizio Marinella, father of Alessandro and third generation of the company. The challenge of running a family fashion business is immense, according to the youngest Marinella: “You have to constantly evolve while remaining consistent with your own story. » A riddle to which the two family sagas know the solution, as they confirmed during the evening in Caserta.
About The Author
