Pre-Fall, in comparison to other seasons, has an all-things-for-all-people vibe. It’s on the selling floor for months longer than the runway seasons that precede and follow it, after all; brands are compelled to move a lot of merch. If the rule applied to Maison Margiela more than most labels, that’s because the new collection juxtaposed creative director John Galliano’s grand gestures with Martin Margiela’s old sleights of hand. The golden overcoat with a great swoop of a collar worn with an orange bias-cut dress was trademark Galliano, of course, in both silhouette and color palette. An asymmetric dress cut from a pair of men’s trousers, meanwhile, was Margiela through and through. The either-or formula applied all the way down to the lineup’s decorative motifs, which ranged from beading designed to evoke the pattern on the back of a playing card to a wet-paint print that looked as if the wearer had sat on a freshly shellacked bistro chair. The house’s new bag, a top-handle style with a canvas lining that pops out, straddled its own prim/avant-garde divide.
Other details, like the lacy black tights worn by the lookbook’s gender-bending model, were in line with fashion’s current trends. The most bankable piece was a leopard-print rabbit fur coat with python-stamped trim.
