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By Karlo Steel
"By the time the Belgian designer Martin Margiela was appointed as head designer of the storied maison Hermes in 1996, he was widely seen as being at the forefront of the fashion’s avant-garde. The news was a real shock to the fashion cognoscenti, causing a tidal wave of rumors and speculation. It seemed perplexing that the anonymous designer, whose own label was synonymous with fashion deconstruction and underground cool, would be able to coexist with the very pinnacle of French haute bourgeois taste.
But in retrospect it perhaps shouldn’t seem so surprising when one considers the aesthetic arc of that decade. The visual codes of the 90s began with a raw, stripped down look, often referred to as “grunge," but it evolved into something more streamlined and paired down. This trajectory was spearheaded by a group of London image-makers of whom Margiela was a firm favorite. Working with major bands such as Calvin Klein, Helmut Lang, and Jil Sander, and publications such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, that group of photographers like David Sims and Corinne Day and stylists, such as Melanie Ward and Joe McKenna, went on to shape the look of the decade by refining their original raw approach to a more digestible look, which became known as minimalism.
Margiela’s long, to the floor silhouette, often in muted tones, jived with the monochromatic mood of the day. In retrospect, Jean Louis Dumas’ appointing Margiela seems savvy and knowing. He understood that, beneath the white paint, the darts and seams, the unfinished hems and unorthodox show venues, Margiela was a designer whose collections often revealed a profound understanding of classic clothing; an artist whose ideas could be perfectly assimilated within Hermes.
“Margiela the Hermes Years,” an exhibition at the ModeMuseum (MoMu) in Antwerp, pays homage to this often overlooked side of Margiela’s work. “The exhibition allows one to see that while at his own label Margiela exposed and deconstructed his own craftsmanship by playing out the tricks of the trade, at Hermès he used the same knowledge and techniques to hide these secrets. The result was the highest form of cutting and construction, and tailoring par excellence,” said Karen Van Godtsenhoven, MoMu’s curator and the exhibit’s co-curator. “Both sides show the hand of the same master, who was classically trained and whose classmates remember him as someone with an interest in period rooms, vintage clothing and historical costume. This side of Margiela’s ethos has often been overlooked in the creation of his cult.”
And lest we forget, his appointment was concurrent with the then blossoming trend of “Critically Lauded Rising Fashion Star To Major House,” a move that paved the way for the appointments of fellow Belgians like Olivier Theyskens at Rochas and Raf Simons at Jil Sander, and subsequently Dior."
Full article on sz-mag
"By the time the Belgian designer Martin Margiela was appointed as head designer of the storied maison Hermes in 1996, he was widely seen as being at the forefront of the fashion’s avant-garde. The news was a real shock to the fashion cognoscenti, causing a tidal wave of rumors and speculation. It seemed perplexing that the anonymous designer, whose own label was synonymous with fashion deconstruction and underground cool, would be able to coexist with the very pinnacle of French haute bourgeois taste.
But in retrospect it perhaps shouldn’t seem so surprising when one considers the aesthetic arc of that decade. The visual codes of the 90s began with a raw, stripped down look, often referred to as “grunge," but it evolved into something more streamlined and paired down. This trajectory was spearheaded by a group of London image-makers of whom Margiela was a firm favorite. Working with major bands such as Calvin Klein, Helmut Lang, and Jil Sander, and publications such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, that group of photographers like David Sims and Corinne Day and stylists, such as Melanie Ward and Joe McKenna, went on to shape the look of the decade by refining their original raw approach to a more digestible look, which became known as minimalism.
Margiela’s long, to the floor silhouette, often in muted tones, jived with the monochromatic mood of the day. In retrospect, Jean Louis Dumas’ appointing Margiela seems savvy and knowing. He understood that, beneath the white paint, the darts and seams, the unfinished hems and unorthodox show venues, Margiela was a designer whose collections often revealed a profound understanding of classic clothing; an artist whose ideas could be perfectly assimilated within Hermes.
“Margiela the Hermes Years,” an exhibition at the ModeMuseum (MoMu) in Antwerp, pays homage to this often overlooked side of Margiela’s work. “The exhibition allows one to see that while at his own label Margiela exposed and deconstructed his own craftsmanship by playing out the tricks of the trade, at Hermès he used the same knowledge and techniques to hide these secrets. The result was the highest form of cutting and construction, and tailoring par excellence,” said Karen Van Godtsenhoven, MoMu’s curator and the exhibit’s co-curator. “Both sides show the hand of the same master, who was classically trained and whose classmates remember him as someone with an interest in period rooms, vintage clothing and historical costume. This side of Margiela’s ethos has often been overlooked in the creation of his cult.”
And lest we forget, his appointment was concurrent with the then blossoming trend of “Critically Lauded Rising Fashion Star To Major House,” a move that paved the way for the appointments of fellow Belgians like Olivier Theyskens at Rochas and Raf Simons at Jil Sander, and subsequently Dior."
Full article on sz-mag