Style Edit: Max Mara’s autumn/winter 2025 collection takes inspiration from Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, bringing the bleak beauty of Yorkshire to the catwalk
At Milan Fashion Week, meanwhile, sister brand Sportmax focused on reinvention and highlighted raw denim, supple leather and ultra-soft bonded fleece, as well as feminine cuts and modern accessories
Max Mara has become a go-to brand for powerful modern women thanks to its luxurious classics that transcend time and trends. For its autumn/winter 2025 collection, the brand channels another two formidable females, but from the past: 19th-century novelists Emily and Charlotte Brontë. It recasts the famous heroines of their respective novels, Catherine Earnshaw in Wuthering Heights and the titular protagonist of Jane Eyre.
The show, during Milan Fashion Week, featured a series of sleek, self-assured, elegant looks influenced by the Victorian era but designed for modern-day wearers. A new romantic mood could also be felt in the collection’s blend of the classic with a touch of neo-gothic chic and urban rusticity.
Coats – a Max Mara signature – appeared in various guises, from greatcoats with military overtones, frock coats and deluxe parkas to capes and generous, enveloping clutch coats. Antique breeches were re-envisaged as modern trousers with soft pleats. The waistcoat also made a comeback, both with new shrunken proportions and as a country-style gilet.
The colour palette recalled the Brontës’ native Yorkshire, as did the fabrics, which included tweed and Mouliné yarns knitted into intricately shaped, Victorian era-inspired sweaters for a modern take on femininity.
While Max Mara took inspiration from the Brontës’ untamed heroines, sister brand Sportmax looked to the women that make up its ecosystem: the artisans, designers, colleagues, mothers and friends who infuse the brand’s intellectual design language with a sense of realism.
