Having become “more British than the British” after paying £15 million for Easton Neston House at Towcester in Northamptonshire in 2005, Leon Max got what he described as “a smoking deal” when he snapped up Madonna’s former home near the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles for half the original asking price in 2010. A Jewish father of three and thrice married, Leon Max was born in Saint Petersburg and after seeking political asylum in Vienna became a personal trainer in New York. He founded his eponymous Max Studio fashion chain in 1979, owns some 100 retail stores and is said to be worth £1 billion. Of the dress sense of English women, he once remarked: “Everything is always grungy in England, no? It’s like a little shibboleth of the upper class, wearing something out of your grandfather’s trunk. There’s something to be said for a disregard of fashion, but it has to be a carefully curated disregard. It works best, I think, on someone under 18. After the age of, say, 40, you can end up looking like a bag lady”.
Two stories to keep beside you
Leonid Rozhetskin
He co-founded City AM and was executive producer of the 2009 film Boogie Woogie. This Russian financier and lawyer led a closeted life and disappeared in March 2008. Elements of the Russian press suggest he’s living in California under the Federal Witness Protection Program but others argue that he was the victim of foul play […]
Goga Ashkenazi (born Gaukhar Berkalieva)
Termed “the first female oligarch”, Goga Ashkenazi made her first fortune in oil and gas before moving into fashion after buying Vionnet in 2012.
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5 comments
He has done wonderful things for that house. Well done to Leon Max. A rare thing: A Russian oligarch with taste, style and class.
Mr Max sums up English broads well.
Pretentious and affected….bugger off back to Russia. He has such a reputation as a social climber.
I wonder what the political asylum claim was all about…come on Mr Max…who did you forget to write a cheque for?
Get Max to tell you the very amusing story about the 18th Century rock crystal chandelier that was in the auction and subject to litigation
An incredible tale that if I told; you wouldn’t believe it
I smell the ghost of a chance for this man to fall under the spell of Aunty Gillian