The Max Mara catwalk at Milan fashion week had well-cut coats, sturdy block-heeled boots, crisp white shirts and capacious suede handbags. What it quite deliberately did not have was shock value. “I hope everyone watching this show can recognise something of themselves in what they see,” said Ian Griffiths, the British designer who has been at this Italian house since 1987. “I think that’s really important. Without being critical of other brands or designers, so much of fashion alienates people and makes them feel that they aren’t good enough or thin enough or young enough to wear what’s being represented.”
Trousers were pleated and roomy, skirts long enough to be elegant but not long enough to trip you up. In shades of sand and chalk, grey and black, every piece was designed to work with everything else, and to blend into an existing wardrobe. The styling gestures – a popped collar here, a knotted belt there – stopped short of gimmick. The models could have walked off the runway and on to the Milan street – which, Griffiths said backstage, was the point. “The catwalk show is only the prelude to what to me is the real presentation, which is when I see women walking down the street in my clothes.”
Recently, even this most adult and sensible of brands has sometimes been unable to resist the temptation to chase the youth vote. This season, Max Mara went back to doing what it does best, which is fashion for grownups. (Nothing here for wearing in da club.) Griffiths said: “We were founded on the simple mantra of real clothes for real women, back in the 1960s, and when we stick to that idea, we never go wrong. So more than ever, I wanted to focus on real life chic.”
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The beauty of practical clothes is that they allow you to live an exciting life. On Griffiths’s moodboard for this season were portraits of aviators Amelia Earhart and Beryl Markham, explorer Freya Stark, wildlife photographer Osa Johnson and cross-continental driver Eva Dickson, audacious women of the 1930s and 1940s whose “nonconformist glamour” Griffiths wanted to channel for the modern wardrobe. Some models wore their hair swept up and away at the temples, a tousled take on the victory roll, but nothing looked twee or retro. Griffiths said: “I’m not suggesting for a minute that women fill the pockets of their organza cargo vests with notepads and compasses and explorer’s instruments. It’s the idea of getting up in the morning and going places with a certain amount of panache.”
Chore jackets, loose-fit trousers, cross-body bags and shirting are a modern uniform in cities all over the world. This collection was a glossy, Milanese take on how many women already dress. Overshirts, with four patch pockets, took the chore jacket principle and added a dash of safari-jacket exoticism. Stretchy halter tops were cinched with D-rings; while double-breasted silhouettes made for dashing blazers.
