September 30, 2015 |
Deconstruction is easy – ripping stuff apart at the seams, fraying it a bit to look interesting. Deconstructing to reconstruct is far more difficult, and takes a hand far more inventive and talented. That’s John Galliano’s game at Maison Margiela, and part of the house’s history and codes. For his second ready-to-wear offering, Galliano ripped it up (the collection that is) and started again. Actually, he did start again, but rather embellished and painted and embroidered and stuck safety pins through everything, searching for the perfect mix of his couture heritage and Margiela’s DIY cut-and-pasting. Brocade coats trembled with clusters of brooches or clumps of emulsion, while those pins whorled in orientalist patterns that recall Galliano’s obsessions with transversing unknown territory. Of course, until January, Galliano’s Margiela was precisely that: an unknown place. Uncharted lands. His current exploration, leading us along the way, is one of fashion’s most fascinating voyages.
Photographs courtesy of Maison Margiela
