Culture and counterculture; icons and iconoclasts; trophies and tropes; meanings and messages that time turns on their heads. Back in the day, Max Mara devised a code for women on the move. So called power dressing offered the keys to the executive suite. The price was strict conformity; self-expression wasn’t part of the deal for Working Girl.
Twenty or thirty oors below, in shadowy subterranean nightclubs, the style tribes’ studs, straps and chains signi ed a point blank repudiation of the corporate grind. You were one thing or the other. Forty years on, things have changed, barriers smashed, boundaries blurred. Now, the Max Mara woman demands success on her own terms and dresses accordingly.

Her don’t-mess-with-me coat and those tough looking leather suspenders hanging from her waistband are a declaration that our heroine is in a determined and de ant mood. Max Mara says classic doesn’t have to be conservative, especially when it’s served up with feline attitude, a little gothic grit and a big splash of bombshell glamour. Everything is rede ned; tailored Teddies and voluptuous drapes; leopard spots and Prince-de-Galles; fringes and shtails; duffel coats and diamante; maverick camel and radical pink. Max Mara works the dialectic to generate a smouldering energy. Spotlight on punk queens Siouxsie and Sinead as they take the stage in a late night downtown cabaret.

Max Mara’s chanteuses wear mean looking stilettoes, catlike eyewear and a new take on the handbag to wear diva style. T-shirts featuring graphics dedicated to Max Mara by the legendary artist François Berthoud celebrate the imagi- nary gig.

Luxury is a lazy word, used to lump together everything with a little practical purpose. Max Mara merits a more precise de nition, after all, these are clothes with a purpose -to empower. And how can an item of clothing empower? Just watch a woman slip into a Max Mara coat; she feels like a star, she can conquer the world. That hasn’t changed since the brand began the long march with the working woman. Year on year, it’s Max Mara’s job to recalibrate the can- ons of style to sync with “l’air du temps”; for 2018 Max Mara proposes a chic new mix that’s one part boardroom exec, one part husky songbird, and one part screen siren.