At Max Mara, restraint is never reductive. Each season at Milan Fashion Week feels less like a display of trends and more like a study in permanence, with creative director Ian Griffiths refining a language built on longevity, material integrity and authority.
For Fall/Winter 2026, that vocabulary was inflected by history.
A recent visit to Sutton Hoo, the Anglo-Saxon burial site near Griffiths’ Suffolk home, prompted reflections on objects forged in the so-called Dark Ages that have accrued, rather than diminished, in resonance.
Backstage, before a moodboard dense with 7th-century metalwork and weathered helmets, he spoke of artefacts that acquire beauty through use. “Max Mara is an object,” he observed. “A coat or a suit that bears wear with grace.”
Also animating the collection was Matilda of Canossa, the formidable medieval ruler whose lineage traces to the region surrounding the brand’s headquarters in Reggio Emilia. Described as “wise as a serpent and graceful as a dove,” she offered a conceptual axis: power articulated through composure, sovereignty without spectacle.
The medieval undercurrent unfurled in hooded, cape-like coats and austere page-boy tunics, in hip-hugging gored cashmere maxi skirts and ultra-flat mid-thigh boots. Nubuck shoulder patches and rows of metal rivets punctuated sweeping wool cloaks, while plush alpaca, double-face cashmere and mohair introduced warmth and tactility, tempering structure with softness.
The palette, anchored in camel, chocolate, anthracite and deep burgundy, evoked what the house described as shades of the wolf, the fox and the lion — elemental rather than ornamental.
If winter has a foundation, it is the coat, and Max Mara remains unmatched in this arena. Floor-skimming maxi styles in wool and cashmere affirmed outerwear as the brand’s architectural core. A beautifully cut coat paired with supple leather boots was presented as sufficient in itself, a reminder that investment in quality eliminates the need for embellishment.
The layering of tonal shades within a single colour family created depth without distraction, allowing fabric and cut to take precedence. Leather accessories, from elongated gloves to sleek belts and over-the-knee boots, were colour-matched with precision, extending each look rather than interrupting it.
There was a subtle echo of the 1980s in rounded shoulders and sculpted knits, a nod to 1981, the year Max Mara introduced its now-iconic 101801 coat, designed by Anne-Marie Beretta. The numerical symmetry with Matilda’s pivotal year, 1081, suggested not coincidence but continuity, a house attentive to its own lineage.
In a season marked by uncertainty, Griffiths offered something steadier: clothing designed to endure. At Max Mara, garments are conceived not as fleeting statements but as long-term companions, pieces intended to soften, evolve and grow more beautiful with time.
