It seems some designers, just like you perhaps, are fed up with the commercial, beige-washed look that has become pervasive in fashion. While some have opted for expressions of joy or craft, others have looked to fashion as roleplay — clothes as costumes for navigating the world as a stage. It started in Milan, where models at Bottega Veneta carried newspapers and clothes-filled bags, then it continued at The Row with post-workout towels over the shoulder of 9-to-5 tailoring, train tickets were tucked into passports and shoes were worn as bags at Balenciaga, and at Miu Miu holdall bags were brimming with stuff to suggest a woman on the go, a bit like Jane Birkin with her trinket-loaded Birkins. All of this is to suggest that designers want to look beyond clothes and accessories as mere products but as tools for conveying a sense of individual character, even if it is just a styling hack.
The real home of role-playing, attitudinal fashion is Maison Margiela, led by the indisputable King of Character, John Galliano. The house doesn’t show every season, but when it does, its co-ed shows follow a narrative that is often a continuation of stories and techniques that first appeared in previous seasons (this one was a prequel to the parents of Count and Hen, the Bonnie-and-Clyde protagonists from Margiela’s coup de théâtre last June). The models are encouraged to walk like actors, no two the same, and the sense of storytelling comes through not just in the presentation, but in the very seams of clothes, where innovative pattern-cutting and deconstructionist motifs are so unique that Maison Margiela has developed its own lexicon to describe them: decortiqué, the technique of cutting a garment to its structural core, to create what the house described as ‘Rorschach’ cutting, borrowing from the psychological term of subjective perceptions of the same image, is just one of them.
It says a lot that Galliano — arguably the forefather of theatrical fashion presentations — opened his latest show with a suite of black tailoring with shawl collars, ballooned proportions, pockets exaggerated, and the suspended collars of white shirts tied around the neck like cravats. Simple, yet storied; dramatic, yet sombre. What followed was a collection that threw down the gauntlet of historical fashion – 50s couture silhouettes, ballgowns, prim English tailoring, antique undergarments, 80s punk — blended with the DIY spirit known to club kids the world over. It’s almost as if, with every collection, Galliano takes his extensive knowledge of haute couture techniques and encyclopaedic knowledge of fashion history and throws it into the blender with his early punk days and madcap Central Saint Martins inventiveness to create something wholly original, often without a gimmick in sight and free from the shackles of obsessively polished and perfect luxury goods.
The house described it as ‘illustrating the generational impulse for customisation that reflects one’s contemporary truth’. Fabrics were shredded to resemble plumes of ostrich feathers, cardboard taped together to fashion old-world couture hats, wires exposed, shiny bows left with work-in-progress exposed stitching, bustiers pulled down over skirts to create swing coats underpinned with sculptural basques, the creases of dresses laminated to capture a frozen sense of movement, and in general, the detritus of the cutting-room floor turned into ornate decorativeness. Every garment ostensibly has a million interesting details, each one carefully considered and developed by a team of designers devoted to their craft.
What shines through is the power of dressmaking, which is why this show felt like a radical riposte to the overwhelming sense of sameness this fashion month. Its individuality and emphasis on fashion — not just luxury or styling or merchandising — was what makes it one for the books. And yet, the irony is that when you look through these images, you’ll find a plethora of items you’ll want to wear every day. Interesting clothes for living a more interesting life. What more could you want from a fashion show?
