SOFT ARMOUR

For Autumn Winter 2025, Max Mara explores duality through a modern Gothic lens, inspired by the windswept moors of the Brontë imagination. At LN-CC, this vision unfolds through two expressions: the Show collection, defined by sculptural tailoring, shadowed hues and cinematic movement; and the Camel collection, a warm reflection of heritage and restraint. Camel is foundational to Max Mara, its fabric a testament to quality and its colour an iconic mark of distinction that embodies warmth, elegance and timelessness. Together they form a wardrobe of quiet strength, timeless grace and contemporary introspection.

Sleek, self-assured and composed, the heroine of Max Mara’s story encounters the world with quiet confidence. Years of control and precision have brought her success, yet beneath her composure lies a restless longing for passion and freedom. She craves romance, deep and dramatic, the chiaroscuro romance of the Brontës.

The Show collection captures this dual spirit of discipline and desire. Sculptural tailoring and rich texture evoke a world of literary melancholy, while fluid drapery and layered silhouettes suggest movement and release. Great coats with military inflection, squire-like frock coats and enveloping clutch coats define her armour; soft cashmere, lustrous drape and featherlight worsteds reveal her tenderness. The palette of Cascia, a signature hue that moves from stone to sky recalls the rugged beauty of Yorkshire, the landscape of the Brontës’ imagination.

This is Gothic romanticism reimagined for the present, refined by urban sensibility and grounded in lived reality. It is made for the woman who shapes her own mythology with quiet authority, whose strength is inseparable from her vulnerability.

Captured within a London residence defined by oak, shadow and light, the accompanying imagery mirrors her complexity. Each frame portrays the Max Mara woman as cerebral, self-possessed and unapologetically human.

In AW25, Max Mara reaffirms its mastery of contrast and cohesion. The meeting of neo-Gothic romanticism and modern realism reveals a vision of femininity that feels entirely alive in the contemporary world.