Text by Lindsey Kesel
Max Mara, the Italian fashion house known for its avant-garde approach to luxury outerwear, showcases sustainable style with the debut of The Cube Fall/Winter 2022 collection. By incorporating upcycled Cameluxe—an ultra-fine insulating padding made of combed camel hair sourced from excess fabric of the label’s legendary coats—Max Mara is championing the new frontier of responsible fashion.
Founded in 1951, Max Mara upholds a longstanding reputation for mastering exquisite combinations of creativity, industrialization, and experimentation with its latest Cameluxe-instilled interpretation of The Cube.
Born in 2008, Max Mara The Cube is an integrated system of outerwear and accessories centered around innovative stylings of the light down jacket. Luxurious, functional, practical, and unique, The Cube has successfully sustained a clear, precise identity underlined by the unmistakable packaging—a geometric wonder displayed as a “cult object” in the Fashion and Technology exhibitions at the Berlin State Museums and New York City’s Fashion Institute of Technology.
In addition to creating an acclaimed urban glamour aesthetic with its quilted outerwear, Max Mara’s The Cube line features exclusive fabrics created specifically for the project, individual components with outstanding characteristics (think: reversible and modular), and highly customizable designs.
For decades, Max Mara’s iconic coats have incorporated camel hair recovered from the camel’s natural shedding process and repurposed as high-comfort padding. Traditionally, once the pattern is cut, swatches of precious camel hair would go unused. Recognizing the pressing need for organic, renewable resources in apparel production, Max Mara devised a way to upcycle the remaining fibers, giving them new life as Cameluxe padding in the latest generation of The Cube.
This season’s addition of Cameluxe challenges conventional garment production techniques—which typically rely on the use of virgin fibers—by easing environmental impact in the form of reduced energy usage, water consumption, and CO2 emissions.
In the special upcycling process for Cameluxe, Max Mara recovers the excess luxury fabric remaining from the production of its camel-hair coats. The excess camel hair is then spun into ultra-fine fibers, and mixed with recycled polyester to form a high-performance insulation that becomes the soul of its fashion-forward The Cube – Cameluxe garments. Certified by the Textile Exchange as meeting the Global Recycling Standard, Cameluxe adds a new point of conversation in fashion’s ongoing sustainability dialogue.
The collection spotlights the label’s incomparable talent for shaping an unconventional idea in terms of not only design, but exceptional craftsmanship and technique. Each item is an objet d’art, as purposeful as it is captivating, intended to provide luxurious comfort and class to the fabulous and fashionable.
The theme of transformation guides exceptionally versatile goose-down, Cameluxe-padded pieces such as The Cube canvas parka, The Cube canvas cape, The Cube reversible taffeta parka, and The Cube canvas gilet—all water-repellant for maximum functionality. The collection also features several intriguing new arrivals, including The Cube reversible wool-flannel robe coat in Camel color and The Cube water-repellant canvas down jacket with drawstring hood in Caramel, Medium Grey, and Black.
The Cube – Cameluxe offering for Fall / Winter 2022 is a bold statement in eco-chic style. See FW22’s variety of silhouettes in neutral colorways, available in-store and on maxmara.com.
