I have acknowledged the role of textile developments in launching new fashions. Fabric research is of fundamental importance to MaxMara. Innovative textiles, offering for instance enhanced comfort, practicality, fluidity, lightness, stability, or which allow new techniques of construction, for example the new generation of ‘double face’ fabric, or can engender new modes of dressing, for example the recent ‘urban sportswear’ phenomenon based on luxurious interpretations of high-performance fabrics.
Innovative solutions can and should extend to the entire process of the development and even the marketing of a product, and we should consider this a critical aspect of research. Innovation can be the primary reason for a product’s success.
Design
The market research, retail, information, fabric and technical research, the social tensions, ambivalences and ambiguities, the projections of future life, all that I have mentioned in this essay are transformed first into a drawing, then a form. This is the core of our work, and it has for me a magic and mysterious appeal. The sketches, patterns, phototypes, the styling and accessories are all equally important steps which require great investment.
Experience and craftsmanship
It is in the transition from dimensional to tridimensional that we encounter the crucial artisanal aspect of our business. There is no substitute for the accumulated experience and craftsmanship of those pattern cutters and technicians in achieving the delicate balance that validates, authenticates or qualifies a designed garment. The designer must have an eye for these subtleties, and an appreciation of the crafts that enables his/her ideas to come into being.
