Max Mara brings Kinetic Chic and camel coats to Shanghai

Max Mara turned Shanghai’s Long Museum West Bund into a polished argument for where luxury wants to be seen next. For Resort 2027, the house folded its camel-coat authority into “Kinetic Chic,” pairing archival graphics with pieces that moved easily between sharp tailoring and soft fluidity.

The show on June 16, 2026 also served as part of Max Mara’s 75th-anniversary celebrations, and the anniversary framing mattered as much as the clothes. The collection stayed true to the house’s signature palette of camel, cognac, khaki, champagne, black, white and Max Mara red, but it avoided museum-piece nostalgia. A stretchy merino wool cheongsam, a quilted silk jacket and a poplin shirt with a pankou fastening gave the lineup a Shanghai accent without losing the discipline that defines Max Mara’s best work.

That balance between archive and present was reinforced by “The Max!”, the accompanying exhibition curated by Olivier Saillard with Gaël Mamine as associate curator. Open to the public from June 17 to June 28, it was presented as a living archive, a phrase that fits the brand’s method better than any grand theory of dressing. The display brought forward the 101801 coat, first created in 1981 by Anne-Marie Beretta, the Teddy Bear coat designed by Ian Griffiths and released in 2013, and the Metric coat from 2015, which was reissued for the anniversary. Max Mara also produced three limited-edition coats in lightweight pure cashmere, a reminder that the house still knows how to make outerwear feel decisive rather than decorative.

Shanghai was not just a scenic backdrop. The Long Museum West Bund, part of a network founded by collectors Liu Yiqian and Wang Wei and designed by architect Liu Yi-chun of Atelier Deshaus, gave the collection an art-world setting in the West Bund Culture Corridor, a district that has become one of the city’s clearest symbols of cultural ambition. Max Mara’s choice of venue also underlined how strategically the brand is thinking about place. The house has staged resort collections in New York, London, Venice, Berlin and Naples, and its last Shanghai presentation was in 2016 at the Shanghai Exhibition Center.

The front row reflected that reach. Michelle Yeoh, Eileen Gu, Katie Holmes and Maude Apatow all attended, placing Max Mara squarely at the intersection of fashion, film and global luxury. In Shanghai, the brand did not simply celebrate a milestone; it used a city with velocity and cultural cachet to refresh the authority of its coats and polished separates for the next decade.