Maison Margiela Spring/Summer 2018 Artisanal Review
Maison Margiela's latest Artisanal collection was an integrated show focused on technology. Viewers were allowed to flash their phone cameras over the fabrics that glided past and exploded in holographic color. These wonderful fabrics were spliced over luxury classics like the camel trench coat (something creative director John Galliano explored last season), evening gowns, cashmere knitwear, and sleek suiting. It was all an incredible vision of how couture should be done today. The base principles of couture have always been to create something innovative.
In a culture where everyone has an iPhone camera always within arm's length, creating a fabric that changes and becomes more interesting as you photograph it seems a desirable new feature. Not only does this represent the social media obsessed culture that surrounds fashion, but also the innovation of technology within the manufacturing industry.
Everything within the collection moved quickly as models strutted around and fabrics jumbled every which-way. AS technological advances gain more and more momentum, its hard to keep focus. Everything can become suffocating, with constant new information slamming an individual at all hours of the day. That hyper-wired feeling was there with the mixing of neon plastic constructions covering sumptuous lace, Chinese silks, and embroidered materials.
What's amazing about the garments here are the blending of the old and new. In the so-called "Golden Days" of Haute Couture, it was said that you could turn a dress inside out and it still be beautiful enough to wear, according to fashion journalists Tim Blanks and Colin McDowell. Taking traditional silhouettes like the one's stated before and slicing them up, folding them over, and revealing their insides is the forte of Margiela, especially under Galliano's sharp and witty knife. Choosing to take the technical, water resistant windbreaker fabric and pleating it into a skirt was a common theme in a few pieces, and held strong to the message of futurism and past coming together.
Photos Courtesy of BusinessofFashion.com