Max Mara The Cube
Max Mara The Cube concentrates on the research of innovation that has always characterized Max Mara Group, blending a cutting-edge spirit with the easy living approach of contemporary apparel to shape an innovative idea in terms not only of design but also of craftsmanship and technique. Focused on the down jacket, the iconic project Max Mara The Cube is an integrated system of outerwear and accessories born in 2008. Exclusive fabrics created specifically for the project, individual components with outstanding characteristics, innovative design solutions; reversible and modular, with a range of accessories, Max Mara The Cube is luxurious, functional, practical and unique, with a clear, precise identity underlined by the unmistakable packaging: the “Cube”.
Max Mara The Cube is an original design item that has been included into the collections of the Staatliche Museen in Berlin and of the FIT in New York, where it has been displayed as a “cult object” within the ‘Fashion and Technology’ exhibition. The perfect combination of creativity, industrialization and experimentation.
To celebrate The Cube’s global reach, and an ongoing collaboration series, Max Mara presents the work of three prominent artists and their interpretation of Max Mara The Cube.
SAM TAYLOR-JOHNSON
Just as an enormous box of The Cube coats arrived at the Los Angeles doorstep of photographer and director Sam Taylor-Johnson, North America was locking down cities in an effort to mitigate COVID-19. The well-conceived studio concept that Taylor-Johnson had in mind was no longer an option, and so, working without assistants or lighting, she deployed her house-bound daughters as subjects. “I realized that every single picture I took of them, they were huddled — a feeling that they were in a cozy down protection. I made them feel close, warm, and protected, and that’s the best you can do as a parent.” For Taylor-Johnson, being malleable isn’t a foreign state.
Her ability to adapt to different mediums and roles is electrifying. Prior to becoming a Hollywood director known for motion pictures such as Nowhere Boy and Fifty Shades of Grey, Sam’s early involvement in the art world included her engagement with the Young British Artists movement, and she is known for her conceptually-driven, often autobiographical images which, with levels of soberness and humor, confront her own mortality, including having successfully battled cancer — twice. And so perhaps it should come as no surprise that Sam’s images borne from lockdown have such a comforting outcome.
“They feel so reflective of exactly now,” she says.
STEPHEN SHORE
Stephen Shore is a giant amongst the pantheon of photographic greats, his career beginning at the tender age of fourteen when he sold three black-and-white photographs to New York City’s Museum of Modern Art. By the age of sixteen, Shore was hanging out with Andy Warhol at the Factory, documenting the day-to-day activities of Warhol’s cast of characters. By the age of twenty-four, Shore was the first living photographer to have a solo exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Shore’s documentary style is ideally encapsulated as he installs The Cube in scenarios that oscillate between industrial and suburban landscapes. “I was looking for visually and structurally complex environments. Nothing too neat. Nothing too ordered. I wanted an environment and a tonality that complemented The Cube,” he explains. Being presented with the opportunity to photograph The Cube was a challenge akin to what Shore finds most engaging, adding, “I’ve been interested in solving visual problems for most of my artistic life.”
ALEX PRAGER
Alex Prager grew up in Los Angeles, observing early on the ubiquitous cultural intersection of artifice and reality which so many have come to know the city for. Born into a family of artistic practitioners — her grandfather made his living as a photographer — Prager watched classic cinema at her grandmother’s Los Feliz apartment, studying the role of the director to conceive “all-encompassing worlds for characters to live in,” adding the “total commitment from the director was mesmerizing to me.” It is unsurprising then that Prager’s work is punctuated with cinematic tableaus of characters and emotions — the salient narrative which explores the tension borne from our nuanced perceptions of reality.
“My characters, sets, and ideas are an amalgam of the things I’ve collected moving through life,” muses Prager, “my memories, films I’ve loved, people I used to know, artists I’ve been influenced by, my family and my friends, I use all of it in my work.”
For the Max Mara The Cube portfolio, Alex chose to photograph her sister, Vanessa, an accomplished painter and her longtime muse. Once roommates, Alex practiced lighting and composition techniques with Vanessa as her subject, experimenting with ideas for pictures and films. Although both women now live in separate homes with families of their own, they remain close collaborators.
