“Swashbuckling” is how Ian Griffiths, creative director of Max Mara describes the resort 2025 collection inspired by Venice. “We need a bit of romance and braggadocio at the moment as everyone is feeling uncertain about everything,” he says on a call from company headquarters in Reggio Emilia outside Milan.
The collection was shown with great panache in the famous Doges Palace, former seat of Venetian government, the location deliberately chosen by Griffiths as the city was the inspiration for his graduate collection when he was studying at Manchester Met almost 40 years ago. “The silhouettes came on me with a sort of exuberance, visually inspired by painters like Veronese and Titian with all that drapery,” says the self-described “dapper gent with a club kid past and a nose for culture.”
Drawing is central to his work, “and I am doing it now. I started as an architect, and one thing you learn is thinking with a pencil. Drawing allows people to develop ideas in a way that is clear and focused. Architects design buildings and we design clothes that are worn in buildings – but we operate on a faster scale. The spirit of the age is expressed in everything.”
Max Mara is known for classic – but not conservative – style in luxury fabrics. For this collection Griffiths wanted to return to the origins of luxury, and Venice. “It was an already established trading post between east and west and where luxury was born. Italy remains at the forefront, and I wanted to make the point subtly that the desire for luxury will never diminish and it doesn’t have to mean ‘something you don’t need’. You need Max Mara to face the world, to present yourself to the world and to put something on in the morning that you don’t need to think about again – that’s real luxury,” he says.
Famous for his Camelandia universe, and the iconic camel coats associated with the company, I ask him about the colour camel and what it is about it that makes it so popular. “It’s a colour that not everybody immediately relates to for themselves, but what it stands for in history is its association with menswear, male prestige and authority, the pinnacle of male power way back in the ‘60s,” he says. “When women were photographed in mannish camel coats, it looked shocking at the time, but now men are buying Max Mara camel coats, so it has come full circle.”
The original design was inspired by what was called the Ulster coat, a roomy Victorian style for men made of tweed with a stitching detail from men’s tailored suits. The MM camel coat remains a fashion staple as relevant as ever, continually updated and never losing its appeal. Griffiths’ textured Teddy coat, designed in 2013, remains one of the company’s best sellers.
The resort collection for 2025, with its tonal harmony and colours inspired by the mosaics of San Marco – gold, black, brown and cream – is notable for its swagger, layering and ornamentation. Deep velvets, brocades and gilded fabrics are offset with white collars and cuffs. Coats are trenches or long, wrapped and almost monastic, there were shorts, tunics with oversize shoulders, sweeping trousers and textured knits. Flamboyant touches included tassels, chunky drawstrings and turban-inspired headpieces by the celebrated milliner Stephen Jones.
“I wanted to play more with surface pattern and texture,” says Griffiths, refuting the idea of quiet luxury often attributed to his work. “I am not quiet and I don’t think our fashion is quiet either. There is a little bit of loud and I am not a minimalist and neither is Max Mara. You get to play with beautiful patterns, swirling motifs, and east-meets-west type fabrics. Gold goes well with camel and is always in my palette. Knit is an important part of the modern wardrobe in which you can live, eat and work – so knits are not just for Saturday at the supermarket, but can be smart everyday wear or for cocktail party elegance.”
A certain rebellious streak remains in his approach to fashion – as a handsome student with flamboyant hair and make-up, his going-across-town look was a 1920s silk wedding veil and yards of silk tulle. He sold outfits made from lining material and old clothes in a local antique market, “but even then I was thinking of what was wearable”.
One of his all-time heroes is the Irish designer Eileen Gray, and he points to a mood board behind him with images of her and other women who inspire him, also including Marilyn Monroe and Kamala Harris (who wears Max Mara). “Gray took on the modernists and did it in a way that exposed the more feminine, rounded side – she was undaunted by anything that was thrown at her, and was treated in quite an ugly way by them. She was inspired by Chinese and Asian influences and expressed that in her work.”
He loves research. “It is important to keep yourself nourished as a designer, and it all feeds into the general narrative,” he says, adding that he is already working on ideas for three collections: for Milan in September, the following season after that and the winter collection for 2026.
He is also working on an outfit for his 88-year-old mother for a wedding – a loosely belted gold organza trench coat with a silver collar to be worn with wide leg trousers and shirt “and really modern”. He is close to her and attributes his sense of style to her. “I have inherited her hands, and I can see her in my hands,” he says remembering that when his brother went with his father to a football match, he would go with his mother to choose paper patterns in a department store.
Has he ever used Irish fabrics? “We have used Irish textiles in the past, and it’s hard to beat the sheer poetry of Irish tweeds and linens. I think this is down to the beauty of the places where they are woven. Some of our Italian mills use Harris tweed yarns from Scotland. We are looking at ways in which we can use Irish yarns too, both wool and linen.”
His longest visit to this country was in 1983, “when I was a shock-haired punk. A group of friends and I took the overnight train and ferry from Manchester to Stranraer and we found Belfast the friendliest place. Then we travelled down to Dublin, where I saw Pogue Mahone, whom I knew from my visits to London before they became the Pogues. I remember there was a fantastic club scene. I danced every night so much so that I can’t remember much about Dublin by day!” Such undeniable charm, playfulness and relaxed style and personality could equally be applied to his designs.
Ian Griffiths is on Instagram, @ian_griffiths1. Pieces from Max Mara Resort Collection 2025 can be found in Brown Thomas
