Max Mara Spring 2027: Practical Utility Rooted in 1930s Adventure
Max Mara presented well-cut coats, sturdy block-heeled boots, crisp white shirts and capacious suede handbags on its catwalk at Milan Fashion Week. The Guardian
The Spring 2027 outing centered on useful, functional garments, including safari jackets, cargo vests and trench coats. WWD published its review of the show on September 24, 2026, under the title "Max Mara Spring 2027: Make Yourself Useful." WWD
The collection was designed by Ian Griffiths, the British designer who has worked at the Italian house since 1987 and serves as its creative director. Griffiths built the season around a tight, modular color story in shades of sand and chalk, grey and black, with every piece designed to work with everything else, much like parts of a toolkit made to combine.
Utility construction drove the silhouette. The lineup included overshirts with four patch pockets based on the chore jacket, the classic French work jacket, with the pocketed look of a safari jacket. Those workwear layers were paired with stretchy halter tops cinched with D-rings, small metal rings that gather fabric, and double-breasted blazers, cut with two columns of buttons. Safari jackets, cargo vests and trench coats anchored the outerwear offer.
Griffiths tied the system to interwar precedent, the period between the World Wars. His moodboard featured aviators Amelia Earhart and Beryl Markham, explorer Freya Stark, wildlife photographer Osa Johnson and driver Eva Dickson. He said he wanted to channel the "nonconformist glamour" of audacious women of the 1930s and 1940s for the modern wardrobe.
That historical reference was cut for present-day wearability. The house language stays on tailoring, shirting and outerwear engineered as interchangeables rather than occasion pieces. Griffiths framed the house code in functional terms. He said Max Mara was founded on the mantra of "real clothes for real women" in the 1960s. He added that the catwalk show is only the prelude to the real presentation, which is seeing women walking down the street in his clothes.
The Spring direction follows a heavier Fall 2026 statement. That collection, reviewed by WWD on February 26, 2026 under the title "Max Mara Fall 2026: Shedding Light — and Chic," presented a medieval mood. It included robe-like coats, austere tunics and tall suede boots lined with metal rivets. WWD
The broader context here is a shift from silhouette as image to wardrobe as kit. Spring keeps the Max Mara outerwear authority intact but redistributes it across lighter, pocketed, belted layers. Chore, safari and trench codes share pattern logic. Patch pockets, epaulettes, belts and D-ring cinches do the shaping work. Color does the coordinating work.
What this could mean for how the clothes will be worn is more styling autonomy for the wearer. Halter tops can sit under open overshirts or structured blazers. Trench coats can top white shirting without color interruption. Sand, chalk, grey and black allow the wearer to assemble without friction. In that sense, utility reads less as theme than as operating principle.
