MaxMara in full bloom

PACIFICA Group, sole distributor in Thailand for Italian fashion house MaxMara, has just opened Max&Co |and Weekend MaxMara stores at CentralWorld.
The two new shops join the MaxMara store at Gaysorn Shopping Centre.
Thai fashionistas who love the brand were out in force to see the spring-summer line unveiled at Max&Co on the second floor of the Groove Zone, managed by Opras and Sopana Lavichant and Prasert Lavichant of Pacifica Group.
“We’ve been importing Max&Co clothing for more than a year and have had great feedback,” chief executive Opras said, “so we decided to open a dedicated Max&Co flagship store.

“The store interior is typical of the brand, meant to resemble a cosy Milanese apartment in subdued tones that convey wellbeing and serenity. It is designed to make women shoppers feel more at home.”
As for the clothing and accessories on offer, Opras described them as “beautifully designed, carefully made and easy to wear, making the everyday extraordinary”.
This season’s collection evokes “the quintessential LA girl”, bright and breezy in a summery palette of sky blue, inky navy and metallic accents set against sandy neutrals and sun-scorched white.
The seven different styles include the bohemian look of “In Bloom” that captures the bright liveliness of flowers amid polka dots in A-line skirts and dresses. “Pure Linen” harks back to the ’70s in clothes suitable for the bar as well as the beach, all light tones with modern slashes of stripes.
“Occasion Dressing” is a series of diaphanous, floor-sweeping maxis in lush, sunny colours like tangerine and cornflower or with a romantic floral print, a bit of “haute hippie” allure for the evening. It boasts relaxed shapes and soft tailoring in the long dresses, loose trousers, and blouses falling gently off the shoulders.
At Weekend MaxMara, the focus is on leisure and cruise looks. The items on offer – blouses, trousers, skirts, shorts, swimwear, bags and shoes – are already matched up.

The shop is a roomy 95 square metres, but it still feels cosy and welcoming with an eclectic mix of styles, origins and periods. Above Italian cementine flooring, strips of walnut wood contrast with grey glazed cotto tiling. Sofas, chairs, lamps on tables and a smattering of books and magazines invite shoppers to linger.
As the name suggests, Weekend MaxMara, founded in 1984, stays attuned to casual weekend wear, mainly for the outdoors. Its practical and versatile “Town & Country” appeal is full of colour and elegantly feminine. This is “easy chic” – a clever combination of glamorous sophistication matched to the parent label’s original sportswear approach.
The main MaxMara store at Gaysorn is showing the spring-summer line from creative designer Lina Bo Bardi. It’s stylish, passionate and also somewhat radical.
Bardi injects modernism into sensual, sleek and luxuriant clothes that might be athletic or hi-tech. She demonstrates her kinship with the Tropicalia cultural movement that arose in Brazil, her adopted homeland, in the 1960s, for which singer-actress Carmen Miranda is a touchstone. MaxMara keeps pace with the film star’s famous “chica-boom” beat.
The art of design has been characterised as finding order in chaos, but Bo Bardi often moves in the opposite direction. Owning her own “jungle” in a greenhouse back in Brazil, she adorns clothes with profuse flora and fauna prints sliced into patchwork. Against the tropical greenery, lovely birds flit past odd animals like a possum.
The BoBag that Bo Bardi designed in 1951 has lost none of its allure in the new collection. Well-worn tanned leather is held together by restrained saddle stitching, showing two distinct faces.
MaxMara also utilises high-performance jersey and nylon from the world of sports in glamorous body-hugging dresses and other pieces for a “neatly sealed” construction.