It’s Midsommar early in Stockholm, thanks to Max Mara. This folkloric pagan festival, which the whole country celebrates each year around June 21 to welcome the long-awaited arrival of summer, is indeed the starting point for the cruise collection presented on the evening of June 11, within the very beautiful town hall of the Swedish capital. This 1911 building, all in red brick and gold leaf, also hosts the Nobel Prize gala banquet every December 10.
“After presenting our last two cruise collections in Ischia [Italie] and Lisbon [Portugal], I wanted to set sail for northern Europe. One of the first things that comes to mind when I think of Scandinavia is fairy tales and folklore. The paganism found in the work of the playwright Henrik Ibsen, for example. All of this influenced my idea of Scandinavia as a place where trolls and witches are ubiquitous. There is a certain darkness in these fairy tales”, explains the Briton Ian Griffiths, artistic director of Max Mara for thirty-six years.
We find in the collection what makes Midsommar a celebration of summer, but here, the crowns of flowers that the young girls wear around their heads are made of paper and declined in black and white. The floral prints, affixed to large blouses or wide petticoats, are also in black and white. Pompoms and twirling ties encircle the long vaporous white dresses, while blouses play on transparency. Beige, the house’s signature, invites itself on baggy shorts, belted jackets or long loose coats.
Lutheran austerity
Another inspiration for the collection, the author Selma Lagerlöf, who signed in 1906 Nils Holgersson’s Wonderful Journey through Sweden bedside book for all children in the country. Initially, the book was commissioned by the national association of Swedish public school teachers, to imagine a geography book that would present the regions of the country and their different traditions.
Today, this story is as cult as its author, whose writings, which are not only for children, question the female condition of the beginning of the 20th century.e century. Selma Lagerlöf was the first woman writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1909 and to be elected to the Swedish Academy in 1914.
“I stumbled across Selma’s story and its impact on Swedish history. She has worked a lot for the liberation of women in Scandinavia. She was a lesbian, an activist, and used her writing as a platform to advocate for societal change., adds Ian Griffiths. Selma’s Lutheran austerity can thus be detected in the pussy-bow collars of silk blouses paired with high-waisted trousers, or even on the leg sleeves of short dresses or small knit sweaters.
Light, as if to better celebrate the summer solstice, arrives at the end of the collection, through a series of lovely white and black dresses, whose floral prints burst with color. In the front row, the label’s friends and muses, actresses Lily Collins, Demi Moore and Amy Adams, applauded this joyful celebration of summer, in the heart of the city where the sun never sets at this time of year. ‘year.
