Atelier Collection Max Mara FW 2025/2026: Couture coats with a difference
Couture, by legal definition a French term, very occasionally finds its highest expression outside of France, like this week in Naples, when Max Mara presented its Atelier Collection for FW 2025.
A brilliant meeting of lush hybrid fabrics, French couture shapes, Italian finesse and fresh detailing — these were some of the best coats a lady will find anywhere on the planet this fall.
The collection was presented in Naples just one day before the Italian brand unveiled its latest cruise collection on Tuesday in Reggia di Caserta, the Bourbon palace often described as the Versailles of Italy.
Atelier Max Mara, instead, was shown inside Circolo Rari Nantes, a gentlemanly aquatic club magically located at the entrance to historic Santa Lucia port – the charming port smack in the center of the Bay of Naples. This led to some great styling, with mannequins attired in bathing suits, frilly caps and flip-flops beneath this array of some 30 coats, as if they had just finished a swim off the dock of the club — rather like the icons on the mood board: '50s and '60s heroines like Maria Callas, Juliette Gréco, Nina Simone, Edith Bouvier Beale or Jackie Kennedy, the latter seen emerging from a New England beach in swimsuit and skull cap in her photo.
The brainchild of Laura Lusuardi, the septuagenarian designer who this year celebrates six decades working for Max Mara, this selection of new Atelier coats was arguably her best ever for the north Italian label.
'We wanted to mingle 90s minimalism, couture and a little grunge. All designed for women of character,' said Laura, whose mood board included, somewhat improbably, Kurt Cobain.
Like her muses, the coats referenced 50s French couture shapes, echoing designs by Balenciaga, Dior and Givenchy, but taking them somewhere new with rigorous editing, astute detailing and beautifully fresh fabrics.
One standout was an alpaca tweed redingote that swept around the torso, finished with a patent leather lapel or collar. Another was an alpaca/cashmere-blend double-breasted coat that hung perfectly, artfully complemented by wooden buttons.
Another tour de force was a jet black polyester coat, cut with a tuxedo jacket that morphed into a plissé skirt, with a leitmotif of red fabric strips or pocket flaps in the interior.
Skillfully aged collarless cabans and slimline cocoon coats with Mary Quant–high collars all looked great, worn by mannequins from whose hands dangled little 60s transistor radios.
It's hard to imagine any woman not wanting one — or perhaps even all — of these coats that blended a refined functional élan with a soupçon of stylish sizzle. 'My mother always says they are not coats to wear to mass on Sunday,' jokes Federica Lusuardi, her daughter and aide de camp.
Lusuardi is also the brainchild behind Max Mara's archive – one of the world's largest, much of it focused on French couture designers.
'We Italians are very, very good at making things, especially fashion. But when it comes to creation, Paris will always be the capital,' conceded Laura.
Lusuardi began working with Max Mara in the '60s, as a late teenager. Her brilliant career included projects in tandem for Max Mara with such Paris-based star designers as Karl Lagerfeld, Anne-Marie Beretta, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac and Giambattista Valli.
She has had multiple roles in the house, latterly in charge of Atelier, but also serving as a sort of interior minister of culture – regularly staging courses on great designers, with lectures by experts presented before installations of archive clothes and sketches. Focusing on legends like Saint Laurent, Kenzo, Courrèges or Chanel. Max Mara's archive boasts some 50 garments by Chanel, including one truly unique classic suit that belonged to Mademoiselle Gabrielle Chanel herself.
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