Assassin Villanelle from BBC drama Killing Eve and 1960’s comic strip spy Modesty Blaise were targeted as the heroines for Max Mara’s latest collection, with looks to thrill proving a hit on the Milan catwalk this morning.
Though it was fiction’s most iconic secret agent James Bond, recast as a female lead, which served creative director Ian Griffiths with his most compelling protagonist.
Inspired by the knowledge that Killing Eve’s writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge had been recruited to polish the script of the new Bond movie, due to premier next Spring, and modernise the crude gender stereotypes for a post-Me Too audience, Griffiths’ set about imagining what a female 007 would require from her wardrobe.
The result was a collection designed to provide its wearer with an armour against everyday life, whether she’s battling her commute or kicking ass in the boardroom.
Naturally for Englishman Griffiths, who calls North London home, the capital served as a fitting setting for next season’s story.
First, he journeyed to the rain-streaked streets of Westminster where sharp-shouldered suiting in an incognito shade of concrete grey and utilitarian trenchcoats stalked the catwalk as though it were Whitehall’s corridors of power.
Next to lunch in Mayfair, which Max Mara’s protagonist takes in her stride decked in long tiered silk paisley skirts and herringbone check blazers.
Then, in a style true of any jet-set adventuress, it’s off to the airport - note the overnight hold-all - before jetting off to a palm fringed island where tropical military tailored shorts and practical pocket-lined shirts enabled her to keep her cool.
As for letting her hair down at cocktail hour, a trio of fluid silk gowns in pastel shades of lemon, lilac and mint closed the show, as modelled by fashion’s answer to Charlie’s Angels; Kaia Gerber, Gigi and Bella Hadid.
