Grazia Malagoli

Grazia Malagoli is an Italian fashion designer and long-serving director of Sportmax’s fashion department. She joined Max Mara in 1979 after studying design and initially worked with Sportmax fashion director Laura Lusuardi. Malagoli later recalled that the company asked her to lead the collection independently after three or four years, placing the transition in the early 1980s.

Over the following decades, Malagoli directed Sportmax through an internal team of younger designers and represented the label during its fiftieth-anniversary programme in 2019. She was credited as Sportmax creative director for Spring/Summer 2026 and Autumn/Winter 2026.

Malagoli has described Sportmax as a research-led label for a younger customer, developed through experimentation and collaboration. Younger designers bring ideas into an internal studio process, while she guides their translation into clothing aligned with the company’s production standards and the label’s identity. Editing, development and continuity are therefore central to her work within an industrial fashion organisation.

Across her Sportmax collections, familiar wardrobe forms are altered through proportion, construction and fabric. Tailored coats and jackets, elongated lines, technical finishes and contrasts between structure and movement recur, while references range from historical dress and sculpture to music and contemporary art. These references provide material for testing how recognisable garments can feel new. Controlled experimentation remains the consistent principle: ideas register visually while remaining workable as ready-to-wear.