“I was trying to balance between Jane Eyre and her demure self control and Catherine Earnshaw and her untrammeled wild passion in order to find a woman who’s somewhere in between controlling these two polar emotions.” This was Ian Griffiths’s pre-show preface to a Max Mara collection that sought to sublimate the contrasting romantic essences of the Brontë sisters’s famous protagonists: heroine chic.
Walks on the Yorkshire moors had inspired the designer’s observation that the English region’s stormy skies and tumbledown dry stone walls share a character trait with cashmere: color. At Max Mara they call the color of processed cashmere “Casha.” It’s a cold, flinty gray. After a burning opening declaration of teddy coats, a field jacket and an absolute belter of classic cashmere floor-sweeper coat in madder red we transitioned casha-wards. There was a fetching interplay between the vertical lines in some hearty corduroy pants and their sister pattern in a form fitting rib-knit full look of split-fronted skirt and guernsey. We hit full Brontë in the following look, layered cloaked knit cape in flecked charcoal cashmere wool mix over the same ensemble.
Griffiths worked to deliver Georgian swoosh but with modern upgrades. Some of his full skirts in wool or cashmere were hemmed in bomber jacket ribbing, which fetchingly provided a little cinch and structure. Another great detail was the wide legged pants in wool or leather that featured the articulated knee seaming more regularly seen on a pair of nylon rambler’s pants. Handsome backpacks in heavy cotton with leather straps and a fantastic poacher’s jacket in dark flecky tweed (worn over knit bloomers) were further incongruously outdoorsy touches.
The double-wound leather belts created a cinched silhouette which, given the volume of Griffiths’s never quite trailing skirts, emphasized their wearers’ narrowness. Casha and madder apart, this was a mostly dark collection whose detail was frustratingly lost against the black backdrop. However this was a highly cultured collection that the Max Mara faithful will yearn to be swept up in.
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