m.a.g.

FILM-FASHION. MAISON MARGIELA-GALIANO AND CINEMA INFERNO

When we read the name Maison Margiela we cannot help but go back to the not so distant past of the firm, when the creative direction was in the hands of Martin Margiela, its founder together with his then partner, the late Jenny Meirens. Those years of beginning and success catalogued the designer as one of the most avant-garde of his generation, working on designing clothes to be clothes, as an almost obsession for the product to be the protagonist, apart from the designer himself who avoided photos and spotlights, designing in a conceptual way and giving his designs an aura of intellectuality, deconstructing, simplifying. That is the flavour we had, when almost 10 years ago John Galiano became the creative director of the firm. Galiano for Margiela. La Maison betting on a radically different spirit from that of the firm in its beginnings. The king of theatrical haute couture, in each show he went to work for Maison Margiela. He seemed antagonistic, crazy. Yet he has been almost magical. Because in reality, everything Galiano touches with his wand is infected with his magic. With Galiano everything is possible, and with him art returns to fashion, that fusion that makes it different when it is produced. His shows are shows of creativity.

The Fall 2022 Couture Fashion Show takes us to a postmodern spectacle, a very cinematic theatrical exhibition. He opts for a stage instead of a catwalk and tells us a story with a captivating staging.

It reminds us that fashion is not just something invented to dress our bodies in a different way each season, according to the creations of the creative directors of fashion brands; It is much more, something to make our minds dream, and Galiano offers us the story of a dream in which characters that seem to come out of a western are mixed with psychedelic princesses playing with haute couture and transformed by colour and the dream itself, through a narrative that captures our gaze. We can’t stop looking.

It was not a parade, it was much more.

As he himself said a long time ago “My work is about pushing the boundaries of creation”

Don’t ever abandon us, Mr. Galiano, please!

Words: Jo García Garrido