Leon Max

Leon Max (born Leon Rodovinski - 1954 in Leningrad, Russia) is a California based fashion designer and retailer.

Biography

Leon was the only son of Jewish playwright Max Rodovinski and his wife Sofia. He attended an English school and read the novels of F Scott Fitzgerald. On leaving school he became an apprentice in costume and set design with the Kirov Ballet aged 16, by 18 realised that the only way he could improve his lot was to flee Soviet Russia.

He applied for a "religious visa" to Israel, although he never intended to live there. His mother gave him her only possession of worth, a clutch of Faberge eggs which he hid in his jacket. When his flight touched down in Vienna, Austria he took a plane to New York: “It was the only way to get across the border without crawling. Israel was never really part of my plan.”

Changing his name to Leon Max by taking his fathers Christian name as his surname, Max enrolled at the New York Fashion Institute of Technology. On graduation he worked for New York fashion house Tahari, and then Los Angeles based Bis, a women’s sportswear firm.

Max Studio

Max started Max Studio on his kitchen table in 1979, and opened his first store in Santa Monica in 1988 - turn over was $50 million in 1989.

An upmarket fashion chain, Max Studio sells through department stores and has 38 of its own retail stores in North America, where it competes with big brands such as DKNY. Actresses Gwyneth Paltrow, Katie Holmes and Angelina Jolie have all been spotted shopping in one of his five stores in Los Angeles. There are another 50 Max Studio shops in the Far East.

In the boom years of the mid-1980s, Max commissioned avant-garde architecture firm Morphosis - then known for the realisation of several restaurants - to design a sharp-edged steel showroom in LA's downtown garment district. The eventual stores employed a similar raw, industrial aesthetic, which did well for a decade but then went out of style. Max engaged UCLA graduate and ex-Morphosis employee George Yu, in the design of the future Max Studio shops .

The label has plans to now expand into Europe using the British womenswear market as its launch point, competing against high-street names such as Karen Millen, Jigsaw and Reiss.

The label plans to open 300 stores around the world

Personal life

Max is married to American model Ame Austin (born 1976). Their friends include the Earl of Dartmouth, Sir Elton John, Lily Safra (widow of the billionaire banker Edmund Safra, and Conservative party MP Nicholas Soames.

The couple are regarded as architectural connoisseurs , and have previously lived in a Greene and Greene Arts and Crafts house, and one designed by modernist American architect Richard Neutra. They presently lived in Philippe Starck’s Mondrian Hotel in Los Angeles, while waiting for planning permission on an 11,500 sq ft cliffside home at Malibu.

In 2005, the couple bought Easton Neston in Northamptonshire, England from Lord Hesketh for £15 million . They converted the 10,000sqft of the fire damaged Wren wing of the house, plus the out buildings which were the home of failed Formula One team Hesketh Racing into their European business base. The remaining main house become their English country home for six months of the year , where they had been welcomed by a gift from Lord Hesketh - a bottle of vodka .

External links

• MaxStudio.com
• Times article on purchase of Easton Neston