Volcanic Grace at La Reggia di Caserta

Max Mara, Italy’s ever-purring Alfa Romeo of refined womenswear, chose the grandeur of La Reggia di Caserta, its baroque magnificence rivaling Versailles, for the unveiling of its Resort 2026 collection. If the setting promised theatricality, the clothes answered with a stirring aria of sensual pragmatism and silent power. Titled Venere Vesuviana, the show was an ode to the Southern siren—at once elemental and exacting, languid and laser-focused.

The spirit of Naples, that simmering Southern stew of passion and pride, coursed through the collection like lava from its active volcano Mount Vesuvius. There was a cinematic heat to the proceedings, unsurprising given the references to postwar Italian cinema and icons like Silvana Mangano and Sophia Loren. The Max Mara woman has long been the epitome of cerebral chic, found in a great coat, but here she emerged with a hip swing and a cheeky, slanted wide-brimmed hat, a swagger born not of seduction but sovereignty.

Creative director Ian Griffiths (his 37 year employment at Max Mara a world record potentially for an Italian fashion house?) once again demonstrated his flair for cultural excavations. He unearthed 1951 not just as the year of Max Mara’s founding but as a cultural inflection point: Ruth Orkin’s iconic American Girl in Italy meets the Neapolitan archetype of the “chiattillo,” a dandy with a glint in his eye and a pocket square to match. The collection was a dialogue between North and South, intellect and instinct, all filtered through Max Mara’s serene lens.

And serenity, in Max Mara’s hands, is never synonymous with softness. This was fashion that stood its ground. The coats, belted, shawl-collared, fringed, were archetypes, unfazed by trend. Silk pyjamas borrowed their swagger from vintage cravatte prints, courtesy of a collaboration with Neapolitan tie-maker E. Marinella. But make no mistake: these were pyjamas not for repose, but for conquest.

There were luscious contradictions at play. Boned strapless gowns, their décolleté framed by whisper-fine gauze, had the sturdy underpinnings of architectural marvels. Meanwhile, jackets whispered the secrets of the sarto napoletano, lighter, looser, but no less precise. A portrait collar on a cropped top paired with a strapless bra and a voluminous skirt gave us Mangano in Riso Amaro, reimagined for the woman who checks her boarding pass with one hand and signs a boardroom deal with the other.

Colour played coy. The palette stayed largely faithful to Max Mara’s beloved neutrals, but sparks of pink and blue candy stripes winked from shirting, like secrets meant to be found. Accessories, refined scarves and four new incarnations of the Whitney Bag, served as punctuation marks, not afterthoughts.

Griffiths didn’t just pay homage to Naples; he claimed it. In front of cascading marble, with Johnny Dynell’s soundtrack pulsing like a heartbeat, Max Mara reminded us of the dormant fire beneath all that polish. Venere Vesuviana isn’t just a goddess, it’s a woman with a plan, her power wrapped in panno, her eye on the horizon.

And so, Max Mara speaks once more in her quiet but insistent voice. A whisper that, somehow, roars