Maison Margiela Fall/Winter 2019 Artisanal Review
In John Galliano’s latest podcast entitled “The Memory Of…”, the designer discusses the thought process of his very conceptual Artisanal show for Maison Margiela. For Fall/Winter 2019, the anarchic and flamboyant designer stated he wanted to focus on decadence. “Desire without reason”, as he defines it, is a concept he began exploring last year, by commenting on Capitalism’s wastefulness, and its extreme creativity. For Spring/Summer 2019 Artisanal, bright graffiti prints against a matching show space causes visual pain to the viewer. It’s decadence to the ultimate extreme. Though the construction and fabrics used were hyper-luxurious, the sickly patterns and sharp colors were sour and dizzying.
For this Fall, Galliano wanted to begin to deconstruct the decadence. The bubble of jam-packed prints and textures finally popped, creating a fallout of slashes and tears. The strutting models weren’t disheveled however, in fact their silhouettes harkened back to the glory days of haute couture.
Shown in a stark white space at the Margiela offices in Paris, the presentation began with projections of the naked body by Katerina Jebb that were peaceful and introspective. These projections wrapped around the walls of the space, leading to warped bodies; arms below the legs, and hips above heads. Spectators began to flow in and stood, with the projections giving away to white light and stomping models. The first look consisted of a crisp white shirt, jagged tailoring with contrast stitching, and sheer trousers that reveled thigh-garters and painted riding boots.
The equestrian touch hit home for Galliano. Equine therapy has been a source of peace for the designer, who bonded with a horse named Blue. In order to ride Blue, a sense of trust and no bullshit must be established, because a horse can sense fear. A horse can also trample you if he wants. Thus, one mustn’t be pretentious and must go about the horse honesty. Galliano stated that he had an interest in finding truth and reality in a world so full of the digital, synthetic, and the falsely hyped.
The same can be said about Galiano’s relationship with Maison Margiela. As an appointed director, Galiano must lead the house based on his gut, without bullshit. And Galiano’s taken the horse, and the maison, on a wild and fantastic ride.
And this ride was an anarchic yet beautiful one. “Décortiqué” techniques (described as cutting out the inside of the garment, leaving only the bones or the general shape), perforating holes, and bleeding screen prints all led to an abstraction of clothes on the body. There was fetishistic leather belting and constriction around the waist and bust. Attention must be paid to many of the fantastic gowns that were born from trousers. Traditionally a form of tailoring, the tweed trousers would be slashed and pulled up over the bust, with their off-gold linings acting as an accent or pulled over and down the back like the gesture of a couture train. Then, when looking at the gown, it appears to take a Watteau shape.
Prints on coats and zoot suits were created by projecting an image of reptile skin onto the garment and then creating a printed fabric fitted to the projection. The idea was taken a step further for the show by extending the projection onto the wearer’s painted arms and face. This created a soft visual whereas usually the makeup has been very graphic the past few seasons.
When the zoot suit-shaped trousers were in fact trousers and not warped into gowns, they were still torn on the right leg, revealing the skin but still evoking the gesture of couture. Galliano said he was inspired by the famous photograph in 1947 of a fashion model wearing Christian Dior’s New Look has been attacked by Parisian pedestrians who though the conspicuous use of fabric was obscene. The excess of fabric and decadence has always been immediately rejected by the general public out of fear of waste. However, healthy decadence, a decadence that soothes the mind and still creates beauty without harming nature can still be found in couture, as Galliano has shown.
Photos Courtesy of VogueRunway.com