What’s So Magical About a Max Mara Coat?
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This past March, a woman in New York uploaded a video of herself to TikTok politely but desperately trying to find out who had accidentally taken her beloved black cashmere Max Mara coat from a rack in a Chinatown salon. The follow-up video, in which she shared security footage of the coat being removed, has racked up 1.6 million views. Many of the commenters were quick to offer messages of support, like “I bought a Max Mara coat for Xmas and it never leaves my sight. Sorry it got taken”and “Max Mara... like. Press charges” and “This gives me Carrie Bradshaw Manolos at that party.”
The woman never got the coat back, but her story seemed to have a ripple effect across the social-media landscape, where Max Mara’s enviable range of exquisitely crafted outerwear—a signifier of great taste, refined luxury, and real power—has become an obsession.
Max Mara has been outfitting women for more than seven decades. The Italian label was founded by Achille Maramotti in 1951 in the northern town of Reggio Emilia with two main objectives: to make clothes that combine European tailoring techniques with those of American industrial production and to reinterpret the strong lines and detailing of men’s coats for women.
In 1981, designer Anne-Marie Beretta debuted the 101801 wool-and-cashmere overcoat in a rich camel hue; the piece quickly became an icon of the house, cementing Max Mara as a kind of Italian couturier for outerwear. This coat and others that have followed—impeccably cut, with intricate handwork and details, crafted from soft, supple materials—are extraordinary to touch and an almost spiritual experience to wear. The most rarefied ones are produced under Max Mara’s Atelier collection, which is essentially ac outure line and sold only by special order in select stores.
Part of the magic of Max Mara’s coats is that they have never gone out of style, either figuratively or literally. They look cool, confident, and sharp, but without any of the hard edges. They fit and form to the body. They whisper (never scream), “Here is a woman who has her shit together.”For women, particularly those in power or in the public eye, they seem to offer a sense of comfort, a sure thing to return to again and again.
If Max Mara’s coats have long been signifiers of quiet luxury (before the internet declared that a “thing”), over the past decade they’ve been worn by many boldface names. Meghan Markle has been spotted multiple times in her beloved Max Mara coats—most notably the Lilia, a cashmere cardigan style that she has worn in both tobacco and black. Other fans include Beyoncé, Angelina Jolie, Alexa Chung, and Amal Clooney, who have been seen in the brand’s famously fuzzy Teddy Bear coat, as well as trenches and belted wrap versions. Kamala Harris wore a double-breasted gray cashmere Max Mara coat with epaulets, the Deborah, to an election-eve rally in Philadelphia in 2020. Even fictional women of influence, like Sarah Snook’s Shiv Roy on Succession and Sienna Miller’s Sophie Whitehouse on Anatomy of a Scandal, have donned Max Mara coats.
Perhaps no one has done more for the cult of the Max Mara coat in recent years, though, than Speaker Emerita of the House Nancy Pelosi. On December 11, 2018, Pelosi was photographed in her burnt-orange Glamis—which became known as her “fire coat”—following a contentious Oval Office sit-down with then-president DonaldTrump, to discuss ways to avert a looming government shutdown, in which she famously bit back at him, “Don’t characterize the strength that I bring.” She exited the meeting a hero, blazing out of the White House behind a pair of sunglasses, with a sly grin on her face and her hands buried securely in her pockets. Within minutes, a million memes—plus a few dedicated X (then Twitter) handles, like @NancyCoat and @AmCoat—were born.
But the reason why Max Mara coats are so coveted tends to run deeper than pop culture and politics. Max Mara’s outerwear—much like the house’s ready-to-wear, which has been designed for more than 30 years by creative director Ian Griffiths—fits neatly into a wide variety of wardrobes. The coats are beautiful but also durable.
“I wear them all the time,” says Priscilla Sims Brown, a banker who owns several, including a white cashmere duster she purchased 20 years ago. “I can go anywhere in them. They are best for traveling—comfort-able enough to wear on the plane—and they make every outfit look more polished and put together.”
“The construction, quality, and delicious feel are unmatched,” says writer and vintage enthusiast Liana Satenstein. “These coats aren’t cheap, but that makes them a mile-stone purchase. I think women buy these when they hit a certain point in their career or life. And they’re understated. It might look like a simple camel coat on a hanger, but on the body it becomes something completely different.”
New York–based stylist and brand consultant Anny Choi agrees. “It’s a coat that truly gets better with age,” she says.“And in terms of building a wardrobe, a great coat can go a long way.” She adds, “You don’t need much to dress it up. Give me a ribbed knit and a pointy knee-high leather boot and I’m a ’90s working girl, which is basically what I always aspire to be.”
Choi remembers her mom coveting Max Mara when she was growing up:“I remember going into those stores, and at first it all seemed plain, but when she would come out of the dressing room, something about her posture and how she stood completely changed.”
That transformative essence is precisely the goal, according to Max Mara fashion coordinator Laura Lusuardi, who has been with the company since the1960s. “This is the main idea of wearing a coat,” says Lusuardi, calling from the MaxMara headquarters in Reggio Emilia. “It’s a private luxury. It’s something that you feel is a part of you, and when you wear it, it’s a personal luxury just for you.”
Lusuardi oversees the Atelier collections, working with the master artisans who bring to life some of Max Mara’s most elaborate coats, which this season include a buttery leather trench, a black-and-white yarn-dyed cardigan coat, and a flared cloak rendered in hunter-green jacquard brocade with a crystal-embellished collar. Lusuardi and the team are obsessive about even the most minor details, like the etching on a button or the shade of red on a single stitch. “It’s for people who want to feel especially elegant when they wear a coat, but the attitude is also important,” Lusuardi says. “A relaxed, slouchy attitude.”
Pelosi’s Glamis was introduced by Max Mara in 2012. She previously wore it to President Obama’s second inauguration. After the Trump showdown, the style became so popular that the brand reissued it in 2019. Though the coat wound up in the history books, Pelosi told Bazaar that year that she had grabbed it the morning of her meeting with Trump for more practical reasons.“It was clean,” she said. “As a person who eats chocolate all the time, I have it on all my clothes.”
Finding clothes that you’ll wear but that will also live with you can seem especially challenging right now in a marketplace that, over the past couple of years, has become saturated with easy-to-produce, overpriced merch rather than finely crafted investment pieces. But when it comes to personal style, coats, even extraordinarily understated ones, have always been big statement makers—less that you’re a fan of a brand or subscribe to a trend and moreas a form of self-expression. Coveting something because it feels “special” almost feels like a quaint notion right now because of so much sameness on the runways and in stores. In a fast-paced market with customers who have short attention spans, the investment piece gets lost. But when the item in question becomes a reflection of who you are, it feels more like an investment in yourself.
For the past 15 years, Lusuardi has photographed people she sees on streets of major cities like New York and Paris in Max Mara coats and compiled the images in binders that she looks at periodically for ideas and inspiration.“The greatest satisfaction is seeing how different women interpret the same coat differently,” she explains. Lusuardi then quotes from her former colleague Beretta. “Coats are the ultimate refuge,” she says. “They shelter in the sense that coats cover, protect, and assign you a specific style. The only pity is that you can only wear coats outside, not inside.”
This article originally appeared in the October 2024 issue of Harper's Bazaar
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