Max Mara Finds Common Ground With Voltaire For Fall/Winter 2023

In search of modernity, the fashion house Max Mara returned to the stormy 18th century with a time machine. What happens in chat apps now used to happen in social clubs and grand balls back then, where news and ideas, real or fake, spread at lightning speed. Everyone was trying to make sense of the world and everyone had an opinion about every event.

Marquise Émilie du Châtelet (1706-1749) was a free-spirited Parisian mathematician whose philosophical masterpieces became the basis of rational thinking in the Age of Enlightenment. With wit as sharp as a surgeon's blade, she examined the problems of the age, spoke about women's education and role in society, about the afterlife and human happiness. Du Châtelet once said, "To be happy, you must give up your prejudices."

Du Châtelet had a lover. This man has been described as "Europe's first truly modern celebrity." It was Voltaire. At a time when philosophy and the natural sciences were tinged with a touch of mysticism, the pair spent ten years conducting scientific experiments and intellectually debating. As a woman, Émilie had to shout to be heard, but she managed to turn this into an advantage: "This male injustice, which excludes us from the world of science, at least serves the purpose of preventing us from writing bad books."

In the so-called Age of Reason, fashion was dominated by apotropaic vestiges of darker times: rich draperies, feathers, horseshoes, whale whiskers, ritual face paint, and tall wigs. According to Voltaire, du Châtelet hated superstition and necromancy (practices of magical witchcraft). In Max Mara's fashion story, du Châtelet seems to reject the complicated and restrictive styles of today.

Embroidered brocade, accentuated hips, bustiers, and shirts constructed with Newtonian precision, paired with minimalist turtleneck sweaters and chunky boots. Skirts based on side bow constructions - not covering the knees or reaching the ankles, held together with sporty pockets.

As if straight out of the future, the long-backed camel coat is replaced by luxurious damask on the catwalk. And the 18th century is so characteristic. details like double pleats falling off the shoulders adorn military-style coats and elegant cocktail dresses.

Du Châtelet often disguised herself as a man, it was the only way to enter male-only cafes and reason with the best minds of the day. So the Max Mara fashion house was inspired by many costumed characters: from high-ranking officials, who threw a coat over one shoulder, neat notaries, who tied their hair with black ribbons, to princes, who fashionably wore majestic cloaks.

Voltaire's poetry betrays that his love for du Châtelet was not based on mere physical attraction, describing the marquise as "a great man whose only fault is that he was born a woman." And now, three hundred years later, her gender is no longer an obstacle to her talent. She is one of a host of women whose wit and intelligence were instrumental in shaping this change. Max Mara's new collection, the Camelocracy, where reason and order come together with a dash of romance, pays homage to Madame du Châtelet and women like her.