As model number one walked down the long, rug-strewn catwalk clutching her silvery silk slipdress to her chest, you could hear someone say, "Did they forget the strap?" Well, yes, they did. Like last season, the Maison Martin Margiela design team seemed interested in the deconstruction of clothes. Or make that just construction. Leather was Velcro-ed to nude stretch jersey on long, narrow dresses, or left un-Velcro-ed to expose the sticky bands, as the show notes called them. Men's suits were tailored to fit the female models, with the extra fabric flapping in the runway breeze. When the designers did the same thing with leather outerwear, the stiffer material created sculptural shapes at the shoulder seams. All of which was conceptual, but also cool. The same couldn't quite be said about other pieces that were stitched with zippers for decoration.
About midway through the presentation, they veered off script to show a trio of evening looks that turned the carpets underneath the models' feet into a strapless dress, a long skirt, and a shawl made out of sequins stitched in an Oriental rug motif. On top of them they slipped clear capes not unlike the plastic the floor coverings would be wrapped in to be shipped. What surprised was how legitimately not-weird they looked. Minus the plastic bags, you could picture the sequined numbers out at a fashion party. Same goes for most of the collection.
