‘A Hit Around the World’ – WWD

Max Mara’s creative director Ian Griffiths still marvels at the success of the Teddy Coat, which marked its 10th anniversary in 2023. “Who would have guessed that the old coat I found by chance in a cabinet would have turned out to be such a hit around the world?”

And a hit it is, not only in terms of its business performance, as Max Mara has sold 90,000 of the coats, but also in light of the international visibility it has brought to the brand, increasing its relevance on social media and attracting a younger clientele while retaining its loyal customers.

Brand awareness further soared through the Fluffy Residence activations in main cities around the world celebrating the Teddy Coat’s birthday. These are spaces reimagined as a home where everything is wrapped in the coat’s signature fluffy beige fabric, from the kitchen countertop, bookshelves and flowers to tableware, the bed with a giant teddy bear figure sitting on it, and even the bathroom. Numerous posts appeared on social media, with visitors posing for selfies in their favorite rooms.

Griffiths is keenly aware of the power of social media and word of mouth. He recalled that the first person to publicly wear the Teddy Coat a decade ago was stylist and fashion entrepreneur Carine Roitfeld and she helped draw attention to the style with that “viral image,” he said.

“It’s a scary world, and this coat helps protect and cuddle, it’s cocooning, but it is also eye-catching. It’s a look-at-me item in the spirit of our times,” the designer said. “And it’s soft to touch but also rich, yet one of the secrets of the coat is that it is light.” 

The coat, which is made of natural fibers and is available in 30 different colors, has sparked numerous imitations, but Griffiths believes that the fit gives the copies away.

Griffiths said this is “not a seasonal product and is transversal across generations.”

Retailing at between 1,200 and 2,300 euros, it is in line with Max Mara founder Achille Maramotti’s belief that the brand should be accessible for the working woman. “The demand has been overwhelming,” Griffiths said. “We are not the ones to choose what represents us but apparently the Teddy touched a nerve,” he noted simply, “and it also has an element of irony, tongue-in-cheek fun.”

Marking the anniversary, the Teddy Ten project includes special editions of the style, such as the new Sparkling version with sequins, or the Mini Teddy Coat for children ages five to 12 with accessories such as gloves or soft hats.

The Fluffy Residence was installed in New York, where Max Mara opened its first pop-up in SoHo in a space entirely covered in Teddy fabric, passing through London at Harrods, and subsequently Hong Kong, at the luxury mall IFS Chengdu, and in Milan at the Portrait Hotel, returning to London at Covent Garden, where the experience included a magic mirror with a camera that captured a visitor’s images and reimagined them with a Teddy twist.

When Maramotti established the Max Mara company in 1951, he began with a firm intention — to dress the wives of local doctors and lawyers, while couturiers in Paris were fighting to dress the wealthiest and aristocrats. Actually, Maramotti was a pioneer, anticipating the future: In a few years, those women, who in 1951 were only wives, started to become doctors and lawyers themselves. “And they became chief executive officers and started sitting on the boards. Max Mara has grown up with them,” Griffiths said proudly.

Inspired by the styles of legendary French couturiers, Cristóbal Balenciaga and Christian Dior in particular, Maramotti tweaked their designs with precise tailoring, clean silhouettes and lean proportions toward a more Italian fashion sensibility that was Max Mara’s signature.

Maramotti tapped into Italy’s desire to emerge from the ashes of World War II, building Max Mara’s fashion reputation with clothes that were as elegant as they were accessible and wearable. He inherited a passion for fashion from his great-grandmother, Marina Rinaldi, who ran a high-society atelier in the heart of Reggio Emilia.

When the Swinging ’60s exploded in London, Maramotti jumped on that bandwagon by launching Sportmax, a secondary line for the younger crowd.

Griffiths may continue to marvel at the success of the Teddy Coat, but Max Mara has built its reputation over the years with a long list of coats that have made history, such as the 101801 design, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2021, or the robe-like Manuela coat launched in the ’90s. The camel coat has become a brand staple, appearing on display at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, at the Fashion Museum of Paris and in Copenhagen’s Industry Museum. Griffiths on his own Instagram account often uses the hashtag #camelandia to complement the images.

Over the years Max Mara has worked with such marquee names as Karl Lagerfeld, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac and Narciso Rodriguez. But, in line with Max Mara’s understated style, the brand always took center stage and the designers’ names never appeared — until Griffiths, who joined the company in 1987, fresh out of the Royal College of Art, and a winner of a Max Mara contest in 1985. In 2005, with the blessing of Max Mara’s owners, the Maramotti family, Griffiths began to emerge as the lead designer of the brand.

The daughter of one of Max Mara’s first retailers, Laura Lusuardi, who is fashion director of the group’s labels — which include Sportmax, Max & Co., Marina Rinaldi and Pennyblack, to name a few — joined the house in the ’60s, and helped put together the archives, also buying back designs during her travels around the world, acquiring looks from Chanel and Madame Grès to Courrèges and Yves Saint Laurent.

Max Mara coat designer Anne-Marie Beretta was instrumental in the ’80s in delivering avant-garde shapes and cementing the success of the camel coat. The camel coat “was a symbol of male authority and was revisited for women,” Griffiths has said.

Along with Beretta’s sketches, Max Mara has meticulously saved illustrations by Norma Robinson, Lagerfeld, Emmanuelle Khanh, de Castelbajac and the other designers who have contributed to the brand’s success.

Griffiths also recalled how Maramotti pioneered the concept of capsule collections, asking then-“It” girl and Dior model Lison Bonfils to design a capsule in the early ‘60s — also in the archives.

Photographers who have shot ad campaigns for the brand include Sarah Moon, Paolo Roversi, Peter Lindbergh, Richard Avedon and Steven Klein.

Though he remained group chairman, in the early ‘90s, Maramotti passed the torch to his three children: Luigi, Ignazio Maramotti, and Maria Ludovica Maramotti. The founder, who owned one of Italy’s largest private art collections, died in 2005. A legacy is the Collezione Maramotti, the museum of contemporary art based in Reggio Emilia, near the Max Mara group’s headquarters.