Max Mara: Who Is Max Mara?

High up on a hill, in a land far, far away, there lives a brilliant fashion mogul and his brood. Tucked into the Italian countryside, the retail emperor dwells in a 13th-century castle replete with a working drawbridge, a turreted brick tower and its very own enchanted forest. On Sundays, Achille Maramotti, as he is known, and his wife Ida gather their three children, Luigi, Ignazio and Maria Ludovica, and nine grandchildren, to sup in their verdant gardens and discuss the family business. But theirs is no ordinary venture. And while "family business" might sound modest, theirs is hardly that. Theirs is what some like to call: the largest high-end retailer for women in the world. With 1,790 boutiques and counting, and staggering sales of over $1 billion, it is a global giant named simply: MaxMara.

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BUT LET'S REWIND.

ONCE UPON A TIME, a long, long time ago (the late 19th century), there was a spitfire named Marina Rinaldi, who lived in the rustic hamlet Reggio Emilia. (To tell the story properly, the "R" in Reggio must roll off your tongue like fine wine.) Signora Rinaldi was a tailor, managing an elegant atelier in the heart of what would become one of the most prosperous cities in Italia and instilling in her equally fashion-forward daughter Giulia the vast importance of being an independent woman. "Don't be kept by a man," she would say. "Have a job."

Taking her mother's pearls of wisdom and stringing them into fortune's necklace, Giulia started the Scuola De Taglio e Cucito, a couture school for young girls. The year was 1923. A visionary with a flair for fashion, Giulia taught her pupils the timeless skills of sewing, amassing so much success that she opened two more branches--one in Switzerland and one in Rome. Reggio Emilia may have been provincial. Marina and Giulia's foresight was not.

Allora (as they purr in Italy), this is where the tale takes flight. Giulia married and had a son Achille, who trained to be a lawyer but found himself curiously inspired by a Swiss raincoat factory near his mother's school. There was something about those cloaks that seemed to set off sparks. He knew his talented madre and her legion of students were treasures, and thus, before pursuing law, he decided to spin the retail wheel.

Achille envisioned prêt-à-porter: ready-to-wear clothes in a period when Italian fashion still meant exclusive, hand-made threads. People were buying raincoats, wearing the jackets tirelessly and seeking tailors for reinvention only when their boredom became unbearable. "Why not mass-produce a fashion collection that would change each season?" Achille mused. Why not, indeed. He hired a couple of his mother's apprentices to make patterns, lured designers from Paris and London, and the business was off.

His first collection was Fall/Winter 1951. Achille charmed several Italian fabric stores into clearing space for his off-the-rack accoutrements, and MaxMara was born. In the annals of fashion history, it's been said that Madeleine Vionnet was the first to cut cloth on a bias. Coco Chanel invented the lovely ladylike suit. Her rival, Christian Dior, rocked the fashion world by accentuating a woman's curves. And in Italy, Achille Maramotti started prêt-à-porter.

SO, WHO IS MAX MARA? And when does he arrive on the scene? Truth be told, there is no such gent. MaxMara is a "fantasy name"--an alias with international appeal that's easy to pronounce from Japan to the U.S. Quite a pioneering concept for a '50s entrepreneur. "Mara," of course, is short for Maramotti; "Max" was Achille's answer to global diction. When combined with his passion for tailoring and affordable attire (as compared to Parisian haute couture, yet infused with the same craftsmanship), MaxMara was his ticket to universal devotees.

The first collection, with its essential and exacting style, already embodied the features of subsequent MaxMara apparel: clean cuts and precise lines inspired by the dazzling French style in vogue at the time but reinvented and redesigned for Italian tastes. Like a full moon prompts amore, fortune soon followed.

Fast forward to today. MaxMara headquarters are still tucked in Reggio Emilia (now the illustrious home to Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese), and Achille, one of the wealthiest men in Italy, dwells in that hilltop castle. He's retired from the fashion world, and his children, Luigi, Ignazio and Maria Ludovica, run the family business. It's a retail empire that Achille grew stitch by stitch, button by hem, first expanding in Italy, then on to France, throughout Europe and, in the '80s and '90s, around the globe.

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