Max Mara coat and 60th anniversary of the company.

The famous Max Mara company celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2011. Over the years, Max Mara has created many collections, but it is especially necessary to pay attention to the Max Mara coat.

A coat is exactly that wardrobe item that can emphasize your femininity and elegance, and a coat from Max Mara is a coat in which you will look simply luxurious, it will become an integral part of your wardrobe. Laura Lusuardi, creative director of the Max Mara brand, says she thinks you can look fashionable by wearing coats from any collection brand. And you can trust her, she worked in the company for 50 years.

Laura, like Max Mara, is from Reggio Emilia. She was born and raised in a family that has been selling fabrics for a long time. The parents had a small shop there, in which Laura was used to seeing luxurious fabrics since childhood. And therefore she has a reverent attitude towards them, as, indeed, towards fashion. And it is not surprising that as an 18-year-old girl, Laura came to work for Achille Maramotti. Fashion for her already had an attractive force. And she firmly decided to devote her life to it. Maybe that's why Marramotti, without hesitation, took the girl to work for him. True, in the beginning, all her work consisted in the fact that she was delivering coffee, in other words, she was running errands. (Think of the movie The Devil Wears Prada).

The Maramotti company was also just developing then. Achilla Maramoti was 24 years old in 1951. He graduated from the University of Parma Law School. And somehow communicating with one of his clients, who was engaged in the production of raincoats, I thought about trying to open his own business. And how not to dare to take such a step, when in the family before him many were already engaged in a similar craft, i.e. sewing. The family carefully preserved the traditions of their handicraft heritage. The grandmother was the owner of the atelier, and his mother Julia Fontanesi Maramotti taught sewing and sewing courses and at the same time taught her pupils to be independent women. In those distant 20s, this was very relevant. The First World War recently ended, many women remained in the family for both mother and father, and for older sisters and brothers - men were sorely lacking.

The Max Mara coat is the first collection.

Maramotti's main goal was to open a clothing factory. He really assessed all his capabilities, developed a business plan, and chose the target audience - women with average incomes. At the time when Maramotti was beginning to implement his business plan, most of the Italian craftsmen sewed clothes by hand and to order, which cost many people very much beyond their means. By the way, his first collection consisted of just one coat and one suit. Where to place such a modest collection? And here Achille was not taken aback. He convinced the owners of fabric stores to place his collection on shop windows... And suddenly, surprise! His coats were recognized by buyers as the best. Although, can it be called a surprise, when a reward always follows for work and patience, especially since it was work that Achille did not only with his own hands, but also with his soul. Soon 200 people worked for him, and in 1964 he opened the first store, after which the next ones began to grow one after another ... Yes, his products became popular and recognizable.

Maxima was formed to manage the chain of stores. This is how the new brand name came about, which today is known as Max Mara. And together with the company, Laura, the future creative director, grew and acquired knowledge. She watched all the processes taking place in the company, and when she was offered design work, Laura carefully coordinated all the details of preparing the collection of the then new Sportmax brand.Yes, it could be said with confidence that Achille Maramotti was not mistaken in her, just as he was not mistaken in choosing all his employees, his entire team, fanatically passionate about work. There are no random people in the company, everyone works and lives like one family. Everyone here knows that the success of a company depends on each of them, so it is not customary to relax. Laura herself speaks about this. Is it possible? The main principles of Maramotti are to enable people to grow and develop professionally, and besides this, the owners of the company themselves work hard from generation to generation, and thereby set an example for their employees. It turns out everything is very simple…. Many have worked here for at least 15 years and more. The company continues to select young and talented designers in whom it fosters a creative approach, diligence, appreciates creative thinking and non-standard ideas in them. To realize your ideas, you need patience and knowledge of fashion history - these are the basic principles that are laid in the training of young designers.

Max Mara already in the mid-60s had several lines, mainly they were focused on youth demand. These are the lines: My Fair, Max Mara Pop and Sportmax. Then the ideas of differentiating fashion by age were born, and such lines as Marella, Persona, Pianoforte, Marina Rinaldi and others arose. Today the company has 23 standalone brands. In the 70s, the company opened boutiques in France, Belgium, Holland, Great Britain. It was only in America that Max Mara opened its existence in the 90s. Newspapers enthusiastically greeted "... the giant of Italian fashion ...". Today there are more than 2,000 boutiques in 105 countries and 5,000 employees worldwide. In 2010, the turnover was 1.2 billion euros.

Over the years of the company's existence, a unique collection has been assembled, which, in addition to coat models from different decades, presents photographs, magazines, and sketches. The archive contains about 4500 vintage models collected from all over the world from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. All this is available to all employees, but mostly designers who take inspiration from studying the history of fashion often use the archive, and as Laura Lusuardi says - "... thereby confirming the philosophy of Max Mara - fashion is history, fashion is culture." “Beauty is difficult to create, but it is even more difficult to preserve and preserve it” - so the great Leonardo da Vinci said. Max Mara succeeds in both. Max Mara models are the embodiment of femininity. Perhaps that is why Laura Lusuardi, under the impression of Russian history and culture, under the impression of the works of the great jeweler Faberge, created a new model called "Anna", which is dedicated to the heroine of Leo Tolstoy's novel "Anna Karenina". The model was first named with a female name. This coat is the embodiment of grace and luxury. The model is decorated with a mink collar, trimmed with gold brocade and lining - with an astrakhan fur print.

Achille Maramotti has always approached everything in his work with innovative ideas. He invited famous designers to collaborate, so Max Mara's collections are associated with names. Karl Lagerfeld, Dolce and Gabbana, Narciso Rodriguez and many others. When such professionals are surrounded, it is easy for everyone to work and, most importantly, in pleasure. It was Achilla Maramotti who discovered the principle of displaying goods (which is now quite obvious) - all coat models were demonstrated along with accessories: bags, shoes, etc. Such a demonstration was an attractive force. The fame and fame of Max Mara continues to grow even now. "... The coat has no age .." - how can she disagree with Laura Lusuardi, if almost all Max Mara coats from the collections of different decades are still relevant now. There are many examples to support what was said, for example, coat 101801, it is still the cult model of the company today. This coat is very popular every year during the demonstration of the collection, it does not go unnoticed, so it is repeated again and again from season to season. The coat was created in 1981 from wool and cashmere, with large sleeves - kimono. It is already 30 years old, and its design has not changed since then.

Laura Lusuardi says that now the company's design task is to make the Siberian goose down jacket equally popular.By the way, the name of the new coat is “Anna"And a down jacket with Siberian down is a tribute to Russia.

It seems that after reading about the famous company, you will think and say, “And I should also have a coat from Max Mara, because Max Mara today is a lifestyle”.
Max Mara is a family business and in 1989 Achille Maramotti handed over the management of the company to his children, who cherish their craft heritage.