Max Mara Group’s Fashion Brand Max&Co. Debuts In Fragrances With 3 Perfumes

MILAN — After having signed a licensing and distribution agreement with Venetian company Mavive last year, Max&Co. is making its official debut into fragrances.

As teased at the time of the deal, the first olfactory collection of the Max Mara Fashion Group-owned contemporary brand consists of three references that will launch in Italy next month. 

The eaux de parfum will come with a sweet-spot positioning and catchy names winking to a Millennial and Gen Z target, such as “She Is a 10,” “Morning Can Wait” and “Good Vibes Don’t Lie.”

In an interview with WWD, Mavive’s founder and chief executive officer Marco Vidal highlighted that the three-folded debut is in sync with the fashion brand’s nature. “There’s not just one Max&Co. woman, as the brand resonates with different personalities and we wanted to represent these through the scents, too,” Vidal said about the project, which follows in the footsteps of Max&Co.’s new brand identity launched this spring and further builds momentum ahead of its 40th anniversary next year.

“That’s why we wanted to target three moments and have three different names, colors and even noses when working on these fragrances, offering both more choice to customers but also thinking about having a larger shelf representation and visibility at perfumery stores,” Vidal said.

All fragrances were developed in collaboration with flavor and scent manufacturer Mane, leveraging also its innovative Wellmotion platform aimed at harnessing the emotional power of perfume by activating add-on modules enhancing the ingredients’ aromachological benefits and overall helping to achieve formulations that evoke a specific emotional response when used.

In particular, “She Is a 10” is a fruity and floral fragrance created by Violaine Collas blending essential oils of Italian bergamot and orange with strawberry extract and jasmine, among other notes. “Morning Can Wait” opens with citrusy accords that give way to the likes of Sambac jasmine, cocoa elixir and cedarwood in a juice conceived by Jérôme Di Marino, while master perfumer Véronique Nyberg mixed ingredients such as bergamot, violet leaves, frangipani, osmanthus, tonka beans and the Red Champaca flower for the “Good Vibes Don’t Lie” scent.

For the olfactory project, Max&Co. also continued its collaboration with Pietro Terzini, a word artist known among Millennials for his catchphrases and whose social media popularity has secured him several collaborations in the fashion and luxury industry. Terzini already tied up with the brand twice as part of the &Co.llaboration project, most recently splashing his artworks on streetwear tropes in a capsule collection presented at Milan Fashion Week in February.

Terzini was back to curate the naming of the fragrances, which come in colored glass bottles alternating straight and curved lines and decked with red labeling. Each scent will be available in two formats, retailing 48 euros and 70 euros for the 50-ml. and 100-ml. sizes, respectively.

“It’s a key positioning, because today the segment of selective perfumery is struggling and there’s a trend to move toward extremely high-end, niche fragrances,” Vidal said. “We wanted to combine quality with approachable pricing, which is also what Max&Co. stands for and that can express even more efficiently in perfumery.”

Kicking off next month, the rollout will include a strict selection of 15 Max&Co. stores in Europe out of its global retail footprint of 400 doors, as well as its e-commerce. These will add to an exclusive distribution deal with Douglas, which will see the scents carried at 350 doors scattered across Italy.  

“We picked and partnered with Douglas because it’s the main perfumery chain here, with the biggest market share and that has been increasingly specializing in enhancing brands and exclusive products,” Vidal said. “Italy is an extremely fragmented market when it comes to perfumery, so choosing such a group reflects a commitment in giving a consistency in terms of image, communication and services which is essential today, especially for Max&Co.’s debut into fragrances.”

A European rollout will follow suit, but Vidal said specific plans are being discussed according to the markets as “in some we will rely on Douglas, in others on other chains or proceed via a multichannel strategy.”

While a launch in the U.S. has been postponed also in light of the evolving tariff situation, a rollout in Asia is already in the pipeline — especially for China, South Korea and Japan — following the positive feedback the fragrances received when previewed at the TFWA Asia-Pacific show in Singapore earlier this year, Vidal said.

Although the executive declined to share projections, industry sources estimate the fragrance to generate 30 million euros in retail sales in the first year since the launch. In addition to Italy, Vidal sees Spain and the DACH area in Europe as main target markets, as well as the Middle East, where he plans to start launching the scents by the end of the year.

These regions are aligned with the best-performing ones for Mavive, which has a distribution network spanning more than 92 countries. After the domestic one, the U.K. and DACH markets are equally the strongest for the firm, whose total sales last year grew 4 percent to 43 million euros versus 2023, when revenues were up 15 percent compared to the previous year.

“In general, today there’s a slowdown in the U.S., U.K. and in Europe, with some exceptions like Spain and Italy.…But we need to understand how long this instability will keep going,” Vidal said. “Plus there are new challenges when it comes to alcoholic perfumery, from new fragrance players such as influencer brands and Arab labels now expanding Europe to all the dupes, which are having a strong impact on the industry and devalue the work and professionalism of many companies.”

Still, Mavive will leverage product launches and new deals in navigating these challenges. Along with a consolidation of distribution, the 2026 agenda for the Max&Co. license will see an expansion of the collection with the launch of a fourth fragrance, Vidal teased.

The Max&Co. deal was part of the strategy of diversification of the Mavive portfolio and expansion of the offer, operations that will allow the company to support a five-year business plan that includes ambitious objectives with balanced growth.

Established in 1986 just like Max&Co., Mavive is an outgrowth of the family-run business Vidal Profumi launched in the early 1900s, and currently holds licenses for brands such as Furla, Genny and Police, in addition to managing the Italian distribution of Cristiano Ronaldo’s CR7 fragrances and Q+A body care products, among others.

The company has been particularly active in the past few months, introducing also “Amberness” and “Bergamood,” its first two fragrances for BMW, another license it added in 2023, while most recently it inked a licensing agreement with North Sails in June, which will result in the launch of the first scent “Ocean” next year.

Earlier this year, Mavive also signed a licensing and distribution deal with Fortuny, the Venetian company established in 1984 by Lindo Lando with the mission of perpetuating the legacy of famed designer Mariano Fortuny. Through its artistic perfumery label The Merchant of Venice, Mavive will create a high-end olfactory collection with the same goal, starting from three scents inspired by the famed Delphos pleated dress created by Fortuny in 1907 and worn by the likes of Isadora Duncan and Peggy Guggenheim. The fragrances will be developed with the support of set designer Pier Luigi Pizzi and launch by the end of 2025.

“In the past few years we had many offers of collaborations and attracted the interest of companies looking for stable partners with a long-term vision like ours,” Vidal said. “Today we’re trying to select projects with a strong identity. It’s no longer enough to have a global brand, but to have a strong character that can be translated into a fragrance, otherwise the game has to be played with tools we don’t have, like giant budgets.”

Asked if he’s eyeing a further portfolio expansion, Vidal bluntly said “hopefully not.”

“We need to focus on the existing projects, which need to be structured well and turned into successes. This is the time to consolidate, also because the market has completely changed compared to last year,” he said. “This sector kept growing throughout all last year and now we’re in a critical moment for different reasons. Of course, on one hand, there couldn’t be infinite growth, there weren’t the macroeconomic conditions for it to be. On the other, tariffs, wars and general instability added to the mix.…Now it’s time to be cautious and flexible, to observe which direction the market is going and know how to react fast.”