Unpacked on the runway as thunder rumbled ominously outside, Griffiths’s portmanteau played out finely. Lemper, in the penultimate look, appeared as much the reincarnation of Dietrich as she ever has as she negotiated a fearsome staircase then strode through the raw-brick museum atrium in her Meissen-shouldered white suit. In red especially, the sophisticatedly primitive fil coupé looked like a Bowie-ishly dramatic piece of performative stage regalia in capes, dresses, and suiting, but it was one that you could see impact-seeking Max Mara clients appreciatively incorporating into their wardrobes. All of Griffiths’s primitivist gestures were tangible, but delicately enough applied to avoid a Flintstones-ish flavoring and instead add an attractive roughness to this customarily sleekest of houses.
And while the collection’s main weight rested on tailoring, multimaterial, paneled, and layered plissé skirts and saddle-shouldered epauletted blousons provided a casual and contemporary note that played to Berlin’s present. Preparing for this collection, Griffiths spent some time speaking with Lemper, who herself once spent three hours on the telephone with Dietrich. The strongest lesson from that conversation, said Griffiths, was that “Dietrich wasn’t frightened of anyone. And you tend to remember her as a dressed-up caricature of herself, but she was so much more than that.” Dressing for the image doesn’t necessarily tell the full story of the wearer—just the one she wants to be told. This collection provided ample material for Max Mara fans to spin Berlin-tinted yarns of their own devising.
