‘You will always find jewels’: This Italian fashion brand is the epitome of timeless, low key luxury

Luxury clothing brands today are more about accessories than clothes, selling aspirational dreams through lipsticks, handbags and sunglasses rather than expensive garments. Gucci, for example, made 60 per cent of its total revenue in five years to 2017 in leather goods and shoes rather than clothing. And what is more desirable, visible and endurable, a Chanel bag that goes with everything, or a jacket fitting a specific size?

An exception is MaxMara, the Italian family-owned luxury brand founded in the 1950s that is all about the clothes, with accessories playing a no less important but more minor role to the main event. Unlike others, it does not have a history of dispensing with designers, so much a feature of the cut throat contemporary fashion industry, but has kept a former Manchester punk, ex RCA graduate, designer Ian Griffiths firmly in charge as creative director for more than 30 years, ensuring annual sales of over €1 billion and healthy profits of over €200 million.

Well known for its classic but cool low key style, its sustainability credentials are impeccable; materials are natural and renewable. The camel hair used for their coats is collected as the animal naturally sheds, with the surplus used to make insulation for padded jackets – so no down or feathers. As a long-standing fan of the brand, every piece I have has weathered the passing of time and earned its keep, whether a grey winter coat or a striped navy summer trouser suit, and they feel as good as they look.

The story of how Griffiths entered a MaxMara competition as an RCA student and joined the company a year later – and never left – has often been told, and he’s on record saying that making real clothes for real people is for him “the most rewarding and satisfying creative experience”. He has also argued that classic clothes don’t have to be conservative, and that the brand has fundamentally been a radical one since its foundation, when its declared aim was dressing a working woman rather than a lady of leisure.

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Best sellers over the years have been the company’s aforementioned famous camel coat, formerly a symbol of male authority, revisited for women, and the fire red Glamis coat worn by Nancy Pelosi that went viral in 2012. A coat, Griffiths asserts, “is a structure that quite literally houses you whilst you’re in the street – it offers protection, comfort and of course, prestige”.

In the current collection for summer 2023 called The Blue Horizon, he has mined Riviera style of the 1920s for inspiration, citing pioneering Irish furniture designer Eileen Gray “who took on the macho world of the Modernist movement”, and her celebrated villa E1027 in Roquebrune Cap Martin as a reference. One of her greatest fans, he has always desired a pair of her Transat chairs, classic pieces of Modernist furniture.

Camel is strong in this collection too and his Instagram posts @ian_griffiths1 highlights what he calls his “Camelandia” style, and shows him sketching designs – an oversized coat in pure camel, a bomber jacket with matching pants, or a cocktail dress with a Watteau back.

In this summer collection, the clothes with their neutral tones, wide leg button front flared trousers, linen suits, racer back vests and wide, floppy hats are as relevant now as they were then, when, according to Mary Blume’s Cote d’Azur, “men and women dressed alike in wide soft trousers, striped fishermen’s shirts, linen jackets and espadrilles”. Despite historical references, these clothes are resolutely modern and sophisticated.

Griffiths has always insisted that MaxMara is never about one season. “We want to make things that will last, investments for life, real clothes for real women. I like clothes that grow old gracefully. Each collection ... if you take it apart is composed of pieces that have a life after the current season” he told WWD recently.

It’s a view endorsed by one of MaxMara’s most loyal and enthusiastic Irish customers and a fan of more than 20 years. Dubliner Anne Hearn who inherited a love of fashion from a mother with an assured and confident style, bought her first piece for a wedding when she was pregnant – an off the shoulder linen blouse with a button down front which she wore over a skirt and flat ballet shoes.

After her son was born, she bought a little jacket and trousers, “and I was hooked. Bit by bit over the years I bought fewer pieces from other brands and fell into Weekend as it suited my lifestyle, and I have been buying ever since. I find it refreshing, it never disappoints and the quality is consistent from one year to the next. It is so feminine and suits all ages and is never boring.”

Her favourite MaxMara piece is a fitted black wool shift dress, subtly embellished with delicate black silk and chiffon flowers. “You feel like a film star in it,” she says. “And it’s the right tone of black for my complexion.” Having made clothes herself, she notices the details and how clever and sophisticated the updating of classics can be. Her latest acquisitions illustrate this – a double breast jacket in vanilla jersey (“not off white, not cream but with a hint of pink and perfect over a silk dress”), a houndstooth silk shirtwaister with the skirt pleated on one side, a new take on a familiar style. “You will always find jewels,” she sighs.

All clothes from MaxMara at Brown Thomas Dublin