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January 29th, 2010
Margiela Line 0 – Artisanal SS10
The Maison Martin Margiela held their haute couture week presentation yesterday in Paris, with an afternoon of audiences coming and going from an intimate curtained salon in the Maison des Métallos, in the 11th district. With an automatic curtain sliding across to reveal the eleven silhouettes, the Maison delivered a coherent theme of mid-20th century evening gowns reworked into hybrid silhouettes, or ‘garment morphing’ as they called it. Each look was announced by a deep resonating voice over loudspeakers, describing the deconstructed outfits and their original forms and fabrications. A white spotlight centred upon each piece, keeping the models faces in darkness, in the tradition of foundation couture presentations – focusing solely on the garment and not the beautiful models.
Since 1988, Margiela has been offering Line 0, an artisanal collection for women that takes vintage and used objects to construct one-of-a-kind unusual sartorial creations. Past pieces include a jacket crafted from a mirror ball, a dress from vinyl records, and a coat of artificial eyelashes. This season traded the wit and tongue-in-cheek innovation of seasons past, rather focusing on a tension between the original garments and their modern day re-pros. The idea of static frameworks contrasting with the flow and drape of silk and taffeta was key, with the skeleton of one tuxedo coat outlined with black pearls, and a layered ballgown reworked into a dramatic one shouldered bodysuit. In another piece, layers of mirror were sliced to create a 3-d mirror dress, and one outfit was entirely adorned with pearls from waistcoat to boots. Each piece took a minimum of fourteen hours to make, some needing up to sixty five hours for embroidery and detailed feather work.
See the video below, where the voice of the Maison announces:
“Number 6: Chloé is wearing a cocktail jacket and pearl-pants. Three cocktail dresses in taffetas changeant from the 1980s are dismantled and gathered into an evening jacket. The first one – a long gown – becomes an extra long sleeve. The second one hugs half of the bust to finish into a voluminous shoulder. The third one covers the other half of the bust and creates a ruffled sleeve. A pyjama pants is made of strings of black pearls.”
Jacket: 45 hours
Pants: 35 hours
Certainly an unconventional approach to couture, Maison Martin Margiela creates a most avant-garde concept for the most historically classic and rigorously structured week of the fashion schedule. With the sense of change in the air after Martin’s official departure, this presentation remained strong in it’s through-line, and although maybe lacking the humour of the past, wavered little in the vision of the house.
