Maison Margiela fall-winter 2018 Artisanal collection: Real-virtual Couture

Maison Margiela Artisanal, fw18. Courtesy: Indigital

“An exercise for the mind”. It is with this sentence that John Galliano announces today his Artisanal fall-winter 2018 collection for Maison Margiela, brand of which he is the creative director since January 2015. Creating High Fashion is not only a technical practice but also a way to keep that part in training of the brain that on other occasions is not used, at least not so much. See under prêt-à-porter, where creativity often accompanies commercial needs. There are those who manage to do it with cunning, keeping up the conceptual thickness of the clothes, and those who lose the compass and sail through tormented seas, creating disastrous samples supported only by a handful of accessories, functional to the sale and maintenance of the brand. Margiela, for its part, resides in the first group.

Maison Margiela Artisanal, fw18. Courtesy: Indigital

The English designer realizes in his latest Couture collection for the fashion house in Paris, his idea of nomadic glamour, arose from a question that he posed: “What’s the meaning of the word cool?”. Above all today the self interfaces with its digital part several times a day, through different devices such as iPads or iPhones, and programs like Instagram and Facebook. The subject is no longer realized in the flesh but in avatars and filters. And so here are not models, but the vision of the media space in which we live “as nomads” by Galliano.

Maison Margiela Artisanal, fw18. Courtesy: Indigital

A high fashion défilé can afford to dare, to go beyond expectations. It is not fashion, rather it is traced in the category of art. Especially from the point of view of the risk that is faced, when the de-construction of a coat is added on top of another, with extra volumes and fluorescent colors, perhaps in foam. Tulle dresses, light and with a bon ton cut, combine with dizzying mary jane shoes in platform version. And the boldness of materials and silhouette, appropriate to the occasion, is taught by the designer himself, who uses to host young interns from fashion schools every month, to let them know the profession of tailor, of the couturier. He also tells it in the podcasts available on iTunes, published in the last hours, inaugurating the show.

Maison Margiela Artisanal, fw18. Courtesy: Indigital

The liquidity of the zeitgeist, wandering aimlessly can be risky, especially if you do not have the tools to control the unexpected, the infinite, the feeling of power offered by the absence of space-time boundaries. But not for Maison Margiela, not for the concept behind Artisanal. Not for the Haute Couture.