Neues museum catwalk show also paid homage to Marlene Dietrich’s gender fluidity
Women over 40, once invisible in the fashion world, are taking centre stage. The German singer Ute Lemper, 55, and the model and ocean conservation activist Carolyn Murphy, 44, were the stars of a Max Mara catwalk show at the Neues museum in Berlin on Monday evening. They continue a trend for indomitable older women headlining fashion’s most glamorous events, in which Diana Ross, 75, has performed at Christian Dior’s recent gala show and Stevie Nicks, 71, sang with Harry Styles at a Gucci event in Rome last week.
Max Mara, the quiet giant of Italian fashion with an annual turnover of €1.5bn (£1.3bn), has always dressed professional adult women rather than It girls; what has changed is that this identity is no longer a barrier to being a seriously glamorous player in the industry. “Everyone in fashion talks about empowerment now, but in Max Mara’s case it is hardwired in. Max Mara was founded in the 1950s with a clear idea of dressing a new class of women who would be going into the workplace,” the British designer Ian Griffiths said after the show.
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