Max Mara

Achille Maramotti started the company in 1951 as Confezioni Maramotti, with the idea of putting American industrial method behind European tailoring — effectively inventing Italian ready-to-wear. He came to it through the women in his family: his great-grandmother Marina Rinaldi ran a respected tailoring atelier in Reggio Emilia, and his mother taught artisans at her own dressmaking school. The name changed to Max Mara in 1957, and the coat has been the centre of it from the start.