SHANGHAI BOUND: Max Mara has zeroed in on the Long Museum West Bund in Shanghai as the location of its next show.
As reported, the Italian brand is planning to hold its resort 2027 show in the Chinese city on June 16. The event will coincide with the opening of an exhibition at the same space to mark the brand’s 75th anniversary. Curated by Olivier Saillard, the showcase will be titled “The Max!” and will be open to the public from June 17 to 28.
The venue is part of an ecosystem of three museums grouped under the Long Museum, a private art museum founded by husband-and-wife art collectors Liu Yiqian and Wang Wei, which includes the Long Museum Pudong and the Long Museum Chongqing outposts. The three units cover multiple categories, including traditional and contemporary Chinese art, Chinese revolutionary art, and contemporary artworks hailing from Asia, Europe and the U.S.
Long Museum West Bund is located at the center of the West Bund Culture Corridor in Binjiang, Xuhui District in Shanghai. Designed by Liu Yi-chun, a Chinese architect from Atelier Deshaus, the building covers a 355,209-square-foot area, with up to 172,222 square feet dedicated for exhibition, and officially opened to the public in 2014.
The resort 2027 runway show will mark the second time Max Mara has shown in the Chinese city. The brand held its pre-fall 2017 and capsule collections at the Shanghai Exhibition Center in December 2016. The event, titled “Monopolis!,” took place on a set made up of sculptures and installations designed by Chinese contemporary artists, who also collaborated with the brand on an 11-piece limited-edition capsule collection.
In 2008, Max Mara held its spring 2009 collection and Sportmax collections runway show at Beijing’s Water Dam. At the time, it also staged a retrospective dubbed “Coats!” of 30 coats styled on models donning Chinese dresses and ornamental hair pieces.
Starting with the 2015 pre-fall season, the Italian company has held runway shows in New York, London, Venice, Stockholm, Berlin and Naples.
In looking East this year, the brand is going in a different direction compared to other European luxury players, which are betting on the American market and heading to the U.S. to stage their destination shows for resort 2027.
As reported, Jonathan Anderson’s debut cruise show for Dior will take place in Los Angeles on May 13. Gucci‘s artistic director Demna selected New York to present the brand’s cruise show on May 16, followed by Louis Vuitton in the same city on May 20.
