MIX ’N’ MAX
Business, art and camel coats are all in a day’s work for the gregarious scion of the Italian fashion dynasty behind MaxMara.
The name Maria Giulia Maramotti has that kind of smackingly good Italiana thing about it. It just rolls off the tongue, Mar-i-a, Giuu-lia Maramotti. How pleasing then for it to belong to the most Italian of women, and granddaughter of Achille Maramotti, the founder of MaxMara.
During dinner at the Michelin-starred Seta in Milan’s Mandarin Oriental hotel, she cajoles the waiters into bringing extra dessert, and coaxes head chef Antonio Guida to the table. “This is my favourite restaurant in Milan,” she exclaims, wearing a fitted red MaxMara dress that matches her red lipstick.
Back in her home country for Milan fashion week, Maramotti now heads up her family company’s retail strategy across North America. Design, she admits, was not her forte. “I have a business approach to fashion, and I’ve always had that kind of mentality,” she says of her role at MaxMara over pre-dinner drinks.
After working in investment banking, she was initiated into the company by working on the sales floor. “It was the best gift I got, because you understood the dynamics. I strongly believe no matter who you are, if you want to have a successful business, you need to start at the bottom and have time to grow and build your own set of skills.”
While design may not be her strength, it’s identifying creativity in others that has become her passion. When Maramotti was four years old, she remembers playing in her grandfather’s office, admiring an Arturo Martini bronze sculpture in the shape of a small dog. She reached out to touch it, and her grandfather chastised her. “You cannot touch that – it’s a piece of art!” she recalls, laughing at the memory. “And then after that, going to museums and exhibitions, that was when I connected with the world of art.”
Today, the same sculpture can be seen at Collezione Maramotti, a private contemporary art collection at the MaxMara headquarters. Maramotti herself has begun to collect art, learning how to understand her own tastes only when she began to meet and engage with the artists themselves. She is particularly supportive of emerging artists. “I love dealing with the artists, because it’s always about seeing life and the aspects in a very different way, like your day-to-day work. Their thought processes are so diverse, it’s so inspiring,” she says, mentioning artists such as Andy Cross, Natasha Law and Matthew Day Jackson who have become friends. “What I love about art is that no matter how bad a mood I am in, I can go to a museum and I’ll stay there for an hour and a half, and then I’d walk out and I’m in a good mood,” she says with a smile. “It’s like yoga for the brain – I just think about art the whole time.”
While being one of Italy’s most pre-eminent fashion dynasties, the Maramotti family is fastidiously low-key. They support the arts not just through the gallery but also with initiatives such as the MaxMara Art Prize for Women, awarding emerging female artists with a six-month residency at the Collezione Maramotti.
“THE CAMEL COAT IS LIKE A GOOD WATCH, OR AN HERMÈS KELLY”
By establishing MaxMara as a label that manufactured highquality clothing for men and then women, Achille Maramotti ushered in the first wave of ready-to-wear clothing in Italy, in an era when many Italians were still visiting dressmakers. His three children now run the business: sons Luigi and Ignazio and his daughter Ludovica, Maria Giulia’s mother. When she’s home, she visits the headquarters in Reggio Emilia. “It’s so emotional … seeing iconic pieces like the camel coat that was designed in the 1950s and reinvented over and over, it’s a continuing process,” she exclaims. She’s gladdened each time someone’s first frame of reference is the tan coat: now a byword for a wardrobe classic. And yes, she’s a coat fan. (“I own maybe 50!” she said with a laugh earlier. She never wears puffers, even in New York.)
“Thank you for bringing that up. That coat is like a good watch, or an Hermès Kelly,” she says, as she touches her own coat – necessary for the brisk Milanese winter. “Your grandmother wears it, your mother could wear it, and you wear it, too.”