WTF: How did John Galliano find himself in Maison Martin Margiela
Recently it became known that 53-year-old John Galliano was appointed the new creative director of all Maison Martin Margiela lines and we will see the first results of his work in January, during the High Fashion Week in Paris. The news, to put it mildly, is shocking: it's hard to imagine a more ambiguous union than John Galliano, inclined to theatricality and glamorous kitsch, and the stronghold of minimalism and intellectual fashion - the house of Maison Martin Margiela.
Shortly before Maison Martin Margiela’s departure from founder Martin Margiela’s house in 2009, it was rumored that Rafa Simons was offered to take his place first, then Heider Ackermann - and both could look quite harmonious in a new place, if not ideological, then at least aesthetic points of view. However, it did not grow together: both Simons and Ackermann refused. In the end, it was decided to leave the fashion house without a creative director, and a designer team should work on the collections, in which “everyone is equal” and whose personalities were not revealed. Everything that happened in Maison Martin Margiela over the next five years looked rather dull: despite the efforts, the genius of Margela could not be replaced. The creative team was able to imitate the product, but did not embody the idea. Visually, the individual collections were interesting, but the concept was not viewed in them.
Martin Marzhela graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp in 1979 - a year before the famous "Antwerp Six". After several years of free swimming, Marzhela came to Jean Paul Gaultier, where he first trained, and then worked until 1987 - in those years when Jean-Paul Gautier, who was still a practical artist, strongly promoted thrash in fashion, a mixture of beauty and deformity , aesthetics and anti-aesthetics. And this is what Martin Marzhela will take when he founded his own brand in 1988 - the concept of a new type of beauty. And, of course, he will embody (and to a greater degree) the avant-garde Japanese designers of the 1980s, led by Rei Kawakubo. Deconstructivism and processing of all imaginable and inconceivable objects into wardrobe items will become Margel’s fulcrum. Each designer’s lunge, be it a combination of disproportionate elements in one design or a hypertrophied lengthening of the sleeves, became a metaphor for the artificial nature of fashion in general. He laid out and collected back the cut of things, and at the same time the semantic and aesthetic codes behind them. However, Martin was engaged not only in his home. From 1997 to 2003, he was the creative director of Hermès, until the grotesque Gautier, from whom Margel had once studied, was put in his place. The twist of fate, not otherwise.
Whether John Galliano will engage in the deconstruction and creation of intellectual ideas in Maison Martin Margiela is a big question. Most likely no. Because Galliano, after all, is a different kind of artist. The definition of too mush is never too much fits perfectly (as well as Jean-Paul Gautier). This is especially true of the latest works of Galliano in Dior, when his favorite technique of roughly mixing everything together acquired an almost homely scope and became a caricatural gesture by the designer. But at the beginning of the road was another Galliano. Minimalistic - in perfectly-tailored combination dresses. Inspired by the same Rei Kawakubo and Yoji Yamamoto (suffice to recall his graduation collection from Central Saint Martins or the latest spring-summer couture for Dior of the season 2000). Famously turning upside down the well-established notions of a suite - a "newspaper" print, inside out shown by things and stitches released. Let's be realistic: the probability that in January at the Paris show Maison Martin Margiela we will see just such a Galliano, tends to zero. But I would like to believe that the time of removal from the fashion industry and rehab was for one of the most ingenious designers of our time to reboot.
Yet, in spite of the polarity of the Margelis and Galliano differences, there is something related to them. They are both great performers. And the shows of both were like performances. Only Margiela has an experimental theater, and Galliano invariably entered the burlesque territory. On the debut show Maison Martin Margiela, models walked on a catwalk covered with white cloth in tabi boots with red painted soles, leaving bloody footprints. And in 1997 in the Rotterdam Museum Boymans - van Beningen staged installation: 18 Maison Martin Margiela dresses were placed in glass cases and infected with mold fungus, which gradually destroyed the fabric and changed the color of things. Galliano, in turn, was an amazing story-teller - not only with his collections that mixed characters, decades, styles, but also shows that more resemble theatrical productions. A show of this format is what Maison Martin Margiela lost with Margel’s departure. And the fact that, quite likely, will return to him Galliano.
In general, the decision of the head of the OTB group (Only the Brave) Renzo Rosso to invite John Galliano to Maison Martin Margiela is a very ingenious move. And visionary. It is worth remembering that Renzo stands behind such houses as Viktor & Rolf, Diesel and Marni. We are now experiencing an era when the designer’s figure at the head of a fashion house sometimes speaks about the brand louder than the things he himself created. For the public, not the thing itself is often important, but who made it. Therefore, at the Moschino show under the direction of Jeremy Scott, the apple has nowhere to fall, as if it were some kind of Kanye West concert. And despite all the attacks, Edie Slimane made one of the most desirable brands from (Yves) Saint Laurent that even his main anti-fan, Katie Horin, recognized. At the same time, in all seriousness both one and the other is absolutely impossible to call brilliant designers. Their supply is important.
The assets of Renzo Rosso already have a spectacular appointment - in 2013, he put in charge of the creative team of Diesel, the famous stylist Lady Gaga Nicola Formicetti. Obviously, Rosso’s goal was to give a mediocre denim brand a new impulse, the same also caused his desire to “marry” Galliano with a potentially strong brand from his portfolio. The upcoming show Maison Martin Margiela Artisanal, which will be the new debut of Galliano, is already called the most anticipated event couture fashion week in Paris - here you have the power of the name. However, besides him, John Galliano has an unconditional trump card - the presence of design talent.
Now you can only speculate about what will be the "marriage" of Galliano and Maison Martin Margiela. We will see the real result in four months. One thing is clear: this is a historic event, without any quotes and irony. Because a phenomenon of such magnitude, when a designer who defined an entire epoch in fashion, but forced to leave it because of an emotional breakdown, finds strength to return, despite the expected ambiguous reaction of the public, occurs for the first time in the memory of the latest fashion history. Obviously, another Maison Martin Margiela house is waiting for us, but who said that it will be bad?
Photo: Maison Martin Margiela, Fotobank / Getty Images
