In 1951, two icons were born: Max Mara, the Italian house of pragmatic polish, and Ruth Orkin’s photograph An American Girl in Italy, which captured a lone woman striding confidently through Florence. She was bold, unaccompanied, and unbothered – a modern archetype. Seventy-five years later, Max Mara is still dressing her. And at its Resort 2026 show, held at the jaw-dropping baroque palace of La Reggia di Caserta outside Naples, the brand honoured her evolution – with elegance, sensuality and a strong Neapolitan heartbeat.
The show opened like a love letter to Southern Italy’s contradictions: discipline and decadence, matriarchy and machismo, coastlines and chaos. Creative director Ian Griffiths traced a new narrative of Italian femininity- one rooted in postwar prosperity, but laced with a cinematic sensuality that conjured Sophia Loren, Silvana Mangano and the dapper scugnizzi of classic Italian cinema. Mangano’s famous rolled-up shorts in Riso Amaro became a touchpoint for micro-hemmed tailoring, paired with sculptural bras and structured tops with portrait collars.
The spirit of Naples pulsed throughout. “We wanted to honour the bella figura,” Griffiths said backstage, referring to Italy’s deeply embedded philosophy of making a good impression- of always looking, and feeling, strong. Cue full-circle skirts with lozenge-shaped pockets, fringed funnel-neck coats, and slip dresses that clung and shimmered. There were gowns in dense panno wool, strapless and dripping in crystals, their built-in corsets peeking out from beneath a sharply cut décolleté – daywear turned disco, with all the understatement of a Fellini heroine at dusk.
A standout feature was Max Mara’s collaboration with legendary Neapolitan tie-makers E. Marinella. Using archival cravatte prints first designed in 1951, silk pyjamas were elevated to eveningwear, while giant tie motifs were embroidered onto cashmere sweaters. Shirts in candy-stripe pinks and baby blues nodded to the flamboyant Neapolitan chiattillo – a fashion-forward dandy with a flair for the theatrical. Fedora hats and softly constructed jackets added masculine counterpoints to the otherwise fiercely feminine silhouettes.
This was Max Mara at its most playful, most romantic, and – crucially – most grounded. Amid the opulence of Caserta’s cascading marble staircases, it was impossible not to be moved by the house’s enduring commitment to utility-meets-glamour. From the brand’s beginnings in Reggio Emilia, where founder Achille Maramotti dreamt of dressing the “wives of doctors and lawyers,” to today’s global citizen, Max Mara has always designed for women with ambition.
And the accessories? The iconic Whitney Bag returned in four limited-edition styles, alongside five silk scarves, all available from June 18th on maxmara.com.
Ultimately, the Resort 2026 collection captured the contradictions that define Italian womanhood – sharp yet soft, composed yet expressive, effortlessly powerful.
