A documentary screened at BAFF reveals Martin Margiela, an enigma and living fashion legend.

Rare portrait of Martin Margiela. Photo DR

As a symptom of the tragic end of the 1980s, reputedly celebratory and over the top, but whose boisterous joy was suddenly erased by AIDS, a young Belgian designer comes to throw his pebble into the pool of surrounding frivolity. In this decade where fashion is hyper sexy, over the top, all sequins and furs, where parades are big shows lasting over an hour (for comparison, today’s parades are completed in 15 minutes), and the creators are real stars, the earth. UFO that overrides all known parameters.

Maison Martin Margiela label. Photos of Maison Martin Margiela and H&M

Street casting, white shops and anonymous labels

Martin Margiela chooses incredible locations for his presentations, does not even say hello at the end of the parade, refuses interviews, and when he agrees, he faxes the answers. He was the first to recruit his models through street casting, at a time when big brands were snapping up “supermodels”. He is also the first to cover his models’ faces, sometimes with balaclavas, sometimes with wigs, always in the name of anonymity. The first winner of Andam, an award created to support young fashion designers, he founded his brand in 1988 in partnership with Jenny Meirens, a dreamer who remained his muse until the sale of the brand. His first store in old Brussels reflects the radical anonymity he has made his philosophy. Everything is whitewashed in pure white, from the floor to the chandeliers, the cash register and even the telephone. Nothing should overshadow the products of the house. It was Jenny who came up with the big white label with four small seams at the corners visible from the front. This label will also have a series of numbers from 0 to 23. The circled number indicates the group the product belongs to (male, female, craftsmanship, etc.).

Ankle boots Tabi, Maison Martin Margiela. Photos of Maison Martin Margiela and H&M

Confidential theater and wasteland

The first parade of Maison Martin Margiela, the brand that announces the collective, is held at the Café de la Gare, a century-old small theater inspired by Coluche, Miu Miou and Gerard Depardieu. Margiela dips the soles of her models in red paint and runs them over a large white canvas to be cut for her next collection. The shoes are already tabi, with split ends separating the toes, borrowed from Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo, who herself used them to ennoble the boots of Japanese garbage collectors. This event draws attention to the culture of the label, which is still unmatched. The next parade, staged in a vacant lot in the heart of the migrant quarter on the border of the 20th arrondissement of Paris, attracts a snobbish clientele of big houses. First come, first served: no first rank, no privileges. Martin Margiela, knowing that the neighborhood children have lost their playground, asks them to imagine and color the invitation cards. At the end of the show, they run down the catwalk and jump into the arms of the models, flooding the hitherto solemn and stuffy event with simple joy.

Long-sleeved T-shirt with jacquard sweater print. Photos of Maison Martin Margiela and H&M

The future “Paris couturier”

Martin Margiela was born in 1957 and grew up in Genk, a mining town in Belgium where clothes don’t matter. However, three factors bring him closer to fashion: his father is a hairdresser, and he has a capricious grandmother, a skilled seamstress who creates her own clothes and loves to play with her appearance. It is from the scraps of fabric that she gives him that he sews clothes for his Barbie dolls. Finally, his mother came up with the idea to one day exhibit wigs in his father’s salon, who agrees on the condition that this trade be carried out after the salon closes. The wig will remain an important part of Margiela’s creative process. Courrège’s parade, seen on television, confirms his idea of ​​one day becoming a “Parisian couturier”. He will study at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, where there is a fashion school. The culture of this academy is primarily conceptual. Along with solid sewing training, students are encouraged to explore the history of the costume, experiment, take apart, question meaning and methods, and recreate with incredible materials such as kitchen utensils. When he leaves, Margiela will pioneer the movement that six of his companions represent in London, each with their own style, with success that earns them the nickname “The Antwerp Six”.

Sweater in football club banners. Photo Maison Martin Margiela and H&M

A cutout similar to a supermarket bag.

Martin Margiela’s vocabulary mainly consists of deconstructions, reconstructions, hybridizations, collages. He was the first to promote recycling by collecting old clothes from flea markets. Sometimes he takes them apart and puts them back together, sometimes he photographs them and prints them in trompe l’oeil style on white clothes. He combines femininity and masculinity, elevates fashion as a creative craft, breaks all established codes of luxury, introduces incredible materials, replaces fur with wigs, paints some objects with large strokes of white paint. He took inspiration from a Franprix shopping bag for his décolletage, designed a dress with toy chain mail rings, invented a corset with ruffled leather gloves, made pieces from stockman canvas mannequins to demonstrate the sewing process, injection breaks bacteria into pieces, exhibited at the Boymans Museum in Rotterdam, and exposes them to creative decay.

Screened at the Beirut Feature Film Festival, Martin Margiela in His Own Words is a rare documentary directed by Rainer Holzemer. Photo DR

Hermès years

After spending his start in the shadows as a fashion house consultant and being, among others, Jean-Paul Gaultier’s right-hand man, just two years after the creation of his brand, Martin Margiela is already in the museum. For six years, until 2003, Hermès entrusted him with the artistic direction of the house. An amazing and explosive collaboration between a venerable house known for its classicism and an avant-garde designer. It will be a success. Between these two common denominators are know-how and anti-fashion, and that’s saying something. Margiela soothes the riot of colors in Hermès ready-to-wear collection. He introduces earth tones and shadows that highlight the quality of the textures and the value of the couturier, creating timeless pieces that embrace the Maison’s tradition while modernizing it. Contrary to all expectations, Hermès ready-to-wear profits increased by 20%.

Mains pressure and unsustainable pace

As he returns to his goal, Margiela realizes that she cannot move forward without the help of an investor. It is Renzo Rosso, the founder of Diesel, who acquires most of the shares. But the rhythm changes, accelerates, does not leave much time for creativity. Jenny leaves first. Martin Margiela retired from the business in 2009, disoriented by the pressures of social media and the frantic pace of the industry. Now he devotes himself to painting and sculpture. Maison Martin Margiela becomes Maison Margiela and continues the collegiate tradition laid down by its founder: anonymity and white coats, collections inspired by the brand’s archives.

The film by Rainer Holzemer is a real show of strength, made in 2018 during the preparation of the Margiela retrospective at the Galliera Museum. He will succeed in making the quietest artist in history speak, remove his hands, document the vision of a man who radically changed fashion and established its modern breviary: reworking, fluidity of genres, deconstruction, recomposition, quotations, craftsmanship and, above all, everything, freedom from dictate.

Source: L Orient Le Jour

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