Max Mara

Max Mara is an Italian luxury house founded in Reggio Emilia in 1951, and it is known above all for its camel coats. The company has been selling essentially the same coat for more than forty years, and that consistency is the whole proposition. The 101801 was designed in 1981 and has never been restyled. You can buy one today and stand next to one bought in 1985 without being able to tell which is which.

Behind the brand

History of Max Mara

Achille Maramotti founded the company in Reggio Emilia in 1951, having trained in his family’s dressmaking business and studied law. His idea was industrial rather than artistic. He wanted to apply the precision of made-to-measure tailoring to ready-to-wear, so a woman could buy a coat off the rack that fitted like a commissioned one. His first collection led with a camel coat and a red suit.

The house then grew by hiring designers and never naming them on the label. Karl Lagerfeld, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, Narciso Rodriguez and Anne-Marie Beretta all worked on Max Mara collections anonymously, and the brand rather than the designer stayed in front. As a result, the house has never depended on a single creative voice.

The company is still owned and run by the Maramotti family through the Max Mara Fashion Group. The family also keeps the Collezione Maramotti, a contemporary art museum housed in the company’s original factory in Reggio Emilia and open to the public.

The Max Mara coats: the 101801 and the Teddy

Coats are the house, and two of them carry it. The 101801, catalogue number and name in one, was designed by Anne-Marie Beretta in 1981. It is a kimono-sleeved, belted wrap coat cut from a 90% virgin wool and 10% cashmere camel cloth, with a dropped shoulder that gives it its unmistakable line. It has stayed in continuous production, unchanged, ever since.

The Teddy Bear coat followed in 2013 and repeated the trick for a new generation. An oversized coat in a plush camel-hair and silk blend, it became one of the most copied outerwear silhouettes of the last decade. Between them, these two coats are what people mean when they search for a Max Mara coat, and they anchor the brand’s icon collection. We include the house in our guide to the best quiet luxury brands, where its refusal to brand anything visibly earns it a place.

The Max Mara lines

Beyond the main line, the group runs several labels at different price points, and it helps to know which one you are looking at. Weekend Max Mara is the casual, more accessible line. ‘S Max Mara is younger and lower-priced than the main collection, and Max Mara Studio between them. Sportmax is the fashion-forward line, and Marella the most affordable. The main line, simply Max Mara, holds the icon coats and the finest fabrics.

Craftsmanship and materials

The 101801’s fabric is the reason it costs what it does, and the reason a well-kept one still looks correct twenty years on. The wool and cashmere holds its shape, resists creasing and ages slowly, and Max Mara buys it at a grade most high-street coats never reach.

Production stays largely in Italy, close to Reggio Emilia, where the company has kept its manufacturing for decades. That short distance between the design studio and the factory floor is part of how the house keeps its coats so consistent from one year to the next.

Where to buy Max Mara

Max Mara sells through its own boutiques, its official site, department stores and luxury etailers. The different lines are distributed differently, so check whether you are looking at Max Mara, Studio, ‘S or Weekend before you compare prices, because they are built to different standards. The coats also tend to run close through the shoulder, and many buyers size up for the intended oversized drape.

Max Mara price

The main-line icon coats run in the low-to-mid thousands. The 101801 runs around $4,000 and the Teddy Bear a little above it, while Weekend and Studio pieces cost considerably less. The icon coat has not been redesigned in more than four decades, so the only thing that will date it is your own taste.