Max Mara educates this season
MAX MARA is clothing very chic women, and in the Philippines, it begins an initiative to educate them too.
At a fashion show in their Greenbelt store on March 26, Max Mara showed its Spring/Summer 2025 collection, inspired, fittingly, by a very educated woman. For this season, the collection is inspired by Hypatia: mathematician, philosopher, astronomer, and teacher. A daughter of a mathematician in the early days of the Eastern Roman Empire, much of her work was derived from Pythagoras, but she was also believed to have a hand in making early astronomical instruments.
At the fashion show, we saw camel-colored coats, sweater sets in nude colors, a white pantsuit, a white halter dress, a white wraparound shirtdress that clung to the body, and various sexy pieces in copper. The overall effect was dressing a sexy intellectual. In box-fresh cottons, they are stitched through externally, lending Max Mara’s tailoring and trench coats a trigonometric turn. Arranged into asymmetric origami-like clusters radiating from one shoulder or hip, they are a new take on the draped gowns of Hypatia’s time.
EDUCATION INITIATIVEAside from introducing the new collection, during the event it was announced that Max Mara in the Philippines will also help young women finish their schooling.
In time for Women’s Month this March, Max Mara in the Philippines partners with U-GO, an organization that helps fund higher education scholarships for talented young women enrolled in public universities in low-income countries. It does so by providing grants funded by individuals and corporations, according to the website of the Ayala Foundation, which is their implementing arm in the Philippines. Aside from the Philippines, U-GO also operates in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Nepal, and Tanzania, according to its website. It currently has 4,320 scholars enrolled around the world. The Max Mara promotion will run until April 30, with 10% of each sale going to U-GO.
“We’re helping young women here in Manila to go and finish school. Once they finish school, then they can be somebody (who) can help in society,” Alou Koa, Max Mara’s local partner in the Philippines, told BusinessWorld.
“Our customers, indirectly, they’re also doing charity,” she said.
The Max Mara boutique is in Greenbelt 3, Ayala Center, Makati. — JL Garcia
