SOPHIE HICKS ARCHITECTS

Though situated in the heart of Paris’s luxury district, the boutique’s design is anchored in the label’s Italian roots. Reinterpreted through a contemporary lens, traditional materials and craftsmanship subtly reference the label’s historic headquarters in its hometown of Reggio Emilia. The walls and ceilings are finished in vanilla-colored marmorino plaster embedded with fragments of Rosso di Verona stone and polished to a delicate sheen. Above the staircase, the plaster finish becomes highly reflective, amplifying the upward movement of the spiral. Terrazzo flooring – polished inside the boutique and rough outside – creates a tactile continuity between the project and the street, transitioning from Italian stone to the French sidewalk.

On the upper floor, a backlit linen screen broadcasts live weather reports from Max Mara’s corporate home in Italy. Across its surface, wind, fog, sun, and rain overlay imagery of the original factory – now home to the Maramotti contemporary art collection – and the surrounding Italian landscape. Adjacent to the screen, an expansive band of windows accentuates the depth of the space, drawing in natural light while framing distant views of the Eiffel Tower. Nearby, the shifting patterns of the atmospheric projector provide a backdrop for the cashmere, camel hair, silk, and cotton collections.