Carola Long
In January this year, Vetements designer Demna Gvasalia sent out models for his AW18 show in soft leather boots with a split toe. Anyone with an eye for fashion history and its most legendary designers would have spotted a glaring reference to Martin Margiela’s iconic (and yes, that word is genuinely applicable) Tabi boots. For SS89, Margiela was inspired by the traditional Japanese Tabi sock to create boots that resembled a cloven hoof.
Gvasalia was criticised by the Diet Prada Instagram account for copying Margiela, but he explained that it’s part of the process of fashion to be inspired by what’s gone before, and that he wanted to show “what Margiela means for me”. Certainly the Belgian designer’s work has infiltrated the fashion canon like that of few others. In 2008 Marc Jacobs told Women’s Wear Daily: “Anybody who’s aware of what life is in a contemporary world is influenced by Margiela.”
And this latest round of shows has seen numerous echoes of his oeuvre: oversized puffas at Balenciaga; roomy overcoats at Isabel Marant; exaggerated shoulders at Balmain, and covered faces and masks at Gucci, Erdem and Richard Quinn. But what is it about the mysterious man who declined interviews, photographs and to take a bow at his shows that remains so influential?
A new Paris exhibition, Margiela / Galliera, 1989-2009, at the Palais Galliera, for which Margiela himself was the artistic director, offers an in-depth look into the power of his work, and by extension his lasting influence. In 2002 the OTB group became the majority shareholder in Maison Margiela, and the designer officially left in 2008. In 2014, John Galliano was appointed as the new creative director.
Compared to designers such as Versace or Armani, the work of Margiela, who trained at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, is less well known. However, he was an original thinker whose creations explored and deconstructed the foundations of fashion.
Alexandre Samson, exhibition curator, who is in charge of contemporary collections at the Palais Galliera, says: “Martin Margiela is one of the rare contemporary creators to fully question the fashion system, from its conception (he’s using all that fashion has always hidden: linings, manufacturing processes), to its presentation (by non-standard shows). His influence in fashion was immediate. As early as 1991, journalists noticed that the frayed edges of his narrow-looking garments were found in many collections of fashion designers around the world.”
What were some of Margiela’s most memorable projects? For his AW94 collection, he recreated dolls’ clothes from the 1960s and 1970s in adult sizes, following their cut and scale. For SS96 he superimposed photos of clothing on to otherwise flat-looking garments for a trompe l’oeil effect, so a plain white top resembled a knitted jumper. In 1997 he produced two collections that were based on the Stockman dressmaker’s dummy, turning the toiles into the finished products. His artisanal collection saw him repurposing vintage clothes, found fabrics and everyday objects such as bottle tops into demi-couture garments. Samson says: “He is the first designer to offer for sale old clothes recovered in ‘new’ clothing, with its ‘artisanal’ line. This act, close to recycling and then upcycling, whose stakes are contemporary, was unknown to couturiers and fashion designers.”
You only have to look at a slouchy Céline coat to see the effects of Margiela’s SS00 Oversize collection, in which he enlarged all his clothes to an XXXXL or an Italian size 78. It was in direct contrast to the prevailing slim silhouette of the day. Margiela found his oversized idea so interesting that he continued the theme for five collections, a decision also at odds with a fashion system constantly in pursuit of the new.
Zowie Broach, head of fashion at the Royal College of Art, says that for her students, Margiela’s early work represents an era, “pre- the globalisation of fashion”, and that, in a time of extreme commercialism, “Margiela’s appeal is that he’s pure and full of integrity”. Of his famously enigmatic persona, Broach says: “He was the ghost of all ghosts. However, his mystique was only really discussed as the idea of the star designer grew. We are on pause in the fashion industry, so we are going back to the ultimate deconstructor, we are deconstructing the deconstructor.”
But maybe this homage is all in the spirit of Margiela himself, who took inspiration from items such as vintage clothes and Japanese Tabi socks. His verdict? “I like clothes that I didn’t invent.”
‘Margiela / Galliera 1989-2009’, until July 15, palaisgalliera.paris.fr
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