Is John Galliano anticipating an apocalypse? If so, Maison Margiela models looked as if they’d be excellently prepared for it, cheerfully putting their best, super-fortified techno-sneaker-shod feet forward, dressed in layerings of every type of protective device Galliano’s imagination could dream up. Given the extreme blast of subzero weather Europe is currently enduring, the appeal of a duvet-sleeve, a vast padded cagoule to pop over a regular coat, and all of that damp-repelling polyurethane might well have struck many in today’s audience as enviably practicable. Well, when climate, politics, and everything else has turned upside down, a spot of upside-down fashion insanity suddenly seems almost logical.
Galliano is far from alone in being a designer who is channeling notions about humans defending themselves against the state of the world outside—Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons at Calvin Klein are two others on the same sort of page. The difference with Galliano is that a) the result doesn’t come over as fearful and b) he’s been working up to it for a while. His idea of “dressing in haste”—throwing on whatever garments come to hand, in no particular order—came to him not while contemplating the threats of climate change and nuclear war, but while laughing at himself when considering what he puts on to walk his dog around the block at night.
Something also to notice is how much Galliano’s work has shifted toward dealing with the now. For someone who is perhaps the greatest living romantic-historicist in fashion, there’s no escapist looking back in what he’s up to at Maison Margiela. At the moment, he’s far more engaged in using high-tech reflective and holographic materials, hollowing out classic garments—such as biker and western jackets until they become skeletons of their former selves (he calls the technique décortiqué)—and generally absorbing the effects of science and social media on our consciousness. Some of the jewelry had taken on the look of prosthetics—a molded ear-cuff for one—and the SMS (Security Margiela Sneakers) looked almost like pumped-up machines, retrofitted from scraps of sports equipment and then run through a computer program.
This new phase—surely part of the payoff of Galliano’s living-in-the-present sobriety—has made his work relevant to young people, some of whom (especially fashion students and young designers) idolize him. For “olders” past being able to wear the fun accoutrements, though, there’s still plenty of serious substance coming out of this house. A merger of trenchcoat and navy wool tailored coat with a Western fringe at the back? Pure creative innovation.
