Deconstructing Fashion, Crafting Illusions, and Redefining Reality: An Analysis of Maison Margiela’s Avant-Garde Designs
The language of fashion is constantly written and edited by the creative minds behind the art. Designers such as Martin Margiela combine their knowledge in the modern and formal concepts of art history and the clothing production process, to produce pieces of art that embody the power of the designer to challenge the conditions of the laws and language of fashion. Drawing inspiration from Cubist elements of collage and geometry, Margiela utilizes multi-perspectival elements to strategically trick the eye into seeing the larger narrative of his ability to craft illusions, challenge norms, and redefine the very essence of fashion. He deconstructs his clothing to further challenge the notion that the eye can perceive all, as if seams are coming undone, revealing inner layers or unexpected details.
This article will analyze three of Maison Margiela’s collections that harness the cubist construct of theatricality and unconventional storytelling, using trompe l’oeil in order to deconstruct clothing in a way that unveils the craft of design, and challenge traditional constructions of how framing emphasizes and rewrites traditional clothing narratives upon the boyd. In conversation with thinkers and artists such as Clement Greenberg and Robert Rauschenberg, I will undo the stitches that hide the meaning of Margiela’s artwork to reveal the power behind what initially meets the eye in avant-garde fashion.
Under the creative direction of Martin Margiela, Mason Margiela managed to deconstruct his pieces in a way that inverted the world of fashion by resetting traditional clothing norms. His initial attempt at the style of illusion debuted at the Maison Martin Margiela Spring 1996 show. This collection exemplifies Margiela's fascination with deconstruction. Garments appeared to be taken apart and then reconstructed in unconventional ways. Seams were exposed, linings were inverted, and clothing was left unfinished, challenging the traditional notion of a polished and refined appearance. The eyes of the Parisian audience were taught a new lesson of the power of trompe l’oeil in deception. In fashion, the term “more than meets the eye” gives power to the designer and poses a challenge to the viewer. It forces the audience to inquire about the reality before them, and allow a visual escape into the power of layering and collage. By using this craft, Margiela played with the idea of “[abandoning] sculptural function” in a way that does not deceive, but puzzles the eye (Greenberg). Clement Greenberg, a key figure in abstractionism discourse, explains collage as a way to break away from the traditional two-dimensional limitations of painting. If the tactile and sensory features of a work of art utilize the qualities of collage, the viewer will more likely engage with this artwork.
Vogue Runway, Maison Martin Margiela Spring 1996 Ready-To-Wear, 1996
In the 1996 collection, Margiela strategically reversed the construction of pieces, juxtaposing reality and fiction, and thereby fragmenting the viewer's expectations as the models walked down the runway. The designer incorporated chiaroscuro negatives of photographs of clothes on fluid materials. Fixed loosely onto the supporting material, these photographs were difficult to distinguish from their true-form counterparts. When combined with conventional framing, the collection creates a play between illusion and reality. Models adorned loosely draped layers, blurring the boundaries between stitched, painted, and real elements. Margiela's intent went beyond focusing on individual models or complete looks; instead, he directed attention to his mastery of contrasting light and dark as "cadences of design” (Greenberg). This deliberate focus on the interplay of elements like deconstruction and layering, aimed to provoke questions about the three-dimensional qualities that Greenberg claims create a dynamic visual rhythm that enhance the viewers perception of the depth, form, and texture of the collection.
It is also important to note the rhetoric that Margiela created through these elements. The show must be broken down into two elements: the pieces themselves and the models as representative figures. As previously described, the distorted proportions, flirtation of light and dark, deconstructed stitching, and strategic layering established a tone of mastery in the art of avant garde collage and modern illusion. However, the models adorning the clothing further aid in the understanding of fiction and reality. By veiling the faces of the models, Margiela committed to allowing the body to be the blank canvas for interpretation and reversal of fashion’s cult of personality. It evokes Neo-Dada elements of deconstruction for the purpose of making the frame visible. Artists such as Robert Rauschenberg harness like acts of erasure to create something new by destroying what was once there. It manipulates expectations to surprise reality. Margiela, used the body as another fabric, and used absence as effective a design choice to properly distort how the rhetoric of the image on the models –composition, framing, and content – can be seen as persuasive strategies, aiming to influence the viewer's interpretation. The eye is tricked just enough to properly challenge the traditional expectations of art, and emphasize Margiela’s creative mastery in the layering of the elemental choices – an ode to collage itself.
Another collection for discussion followed shortly as Margiela quickly grew in popularity as a creative mastermind. Martin Margiela revealed an even clearer understanding for collage and craft in his Autumn/Winter 1997 collection. Rarely does one see an artist or designer desire to harness the element of two-dimensionality over volume and depth. However, Maison Margiela strategically paired two dimensional materials and proportions on a three dimensional frame in an attempt to produce an element of illusion. The collection once again deconstructed and reworked materials onto a crafted background in an unfinished manner. What made this collection special was the use of “new versions of the previous season’s dressmaker-form tops” (Borrelli-Persson). The dressmaker-form tops used the frame of a typical linen mannequin, and transferred it onto the human body to humbly connect the craft with the finished product. Similar to the dressmaker mannequins, the words “Semi-Couture” are printed onto the textile to note the transparency in the crafting process. In Roland Barthes’s, Rhetoric of the Image, he identifies four key image messages conveyed through rhetoric. In this collection Margiela utilizes the linguistic message of the piece through the printing of this message, which “[constitutes] a kind of vice which holds the connoted meaning from proliferating, whether towards excessively individual regions or towards dysphoric values”(Barthes et al.). Margiela’s use of the printed layer on the pieces acts as a controlling device that prevents the interpretation of the collection from becoming too individualized or negative. Again, this returns viewers back to the idea that through the power of linguistic rhetoric as a layer of collage on Mariegla’s designs, the element of relay combines the images on the runway in order to convey a more complex message than words on a bustier. Here, fashion is presented as a form of performance art, akin to the avant-garde spirit of Cubism.
Vogue Runway, Martin Margiela Fall 1997 Ready-To-Wear, 1997
The materials used in this collection as two dimensional elements are important to note for their roles in the idea of deconstruction. From “pattern paper”, “visible basting stitches”, “plastic bags” and “pliable metal”, Margiela managed to take apart the idea of what clothing is and play with the memoirs of the design process (Borrelli-Persson). Specifically, he displayed a piece which layered the blueprint patterns of the original dressmaker-form top onto the finished product itself. As previously noted, the base layer of the design holds power in its ability to speak on the craft process and origins of the collection itself. By adding the unexpected layer of the pattern, Margiela again denotes the crafting process, but also employs trompe l’oeil through collage. The audience is challenged to watch the patterns, raw and asymmetrically pinned together, move down the runway and lay flat on a three dimensional body, and “thrust into real life” (Greenberg). The model becomes the frame for a moving symbol of Margiela’s design process of deconstruction – painted, pinned, and constructed on. Even the illusion of the embroidered pins for the act of fastening challenges the idea of the act of construction, and the eye is decided into seeing a seemingly three dimensional figure that is actually flat. Without each layer and element, including the model, working cohesively, the piece would in fact lay flat. Further, Margiela chose to only overlay these two dimensional fabrics onto certain sides of the ensemble. By disrupting the harmony of the finished product, the layers provide asymmetry that challenges the geometry of a stereotypically finished garment. It is interesting to picture that a designer would purposely choose to leave the pieces layers, tattering, and unfinished and call them couture; but it is the genius of Margiela. It frames the collection in such a way that invites the viewer to question what in the world of fashion is truly real, or just an illusion of the mind.
Maison Margiela further deconstructed and pioneered the cult-classic Tabi shoe from his perspective, illustrating the idea that taking apart old ideas to establish an improved form is how fashion remains ever changing. The Tabi shoe can be traced back to fifteenth century Japan as a way to promote holistic healing through the mechanical separation of the first two toes. Margiela’s 1998 collection of Tabies were created to compare the qualities of the human body to those of clothing. The Tabi is designed with an uncanny resemblance to the shape of a human foot. Yet upon closer inspection, one element calls for inspection and interpretation: the toes. Resembling a hoove, the shoe has an animalistic quality that raises questions of ambiguity and bridges the gap between strange and beautiful – the incarnation of the word bizarre. What is important to note is that this unusual design is plastered upon a seemingly blank canvas of the foot. It almost erases the idea of a human foot and blurs the lines between the body and the utilitarian functions of a shoe. In terms of collage, it pieces together human and animalistic qualities in a geometrical way – the unconventional, angular, split toe design – to parallel the breaking down and reassembling of traditional collage elements. Once again, Margiela utilizes trompe l'oeil to “deceive the eye” into a double-take of the multi-perspectival elements which comprise this shoe. Is it a foot? Is it a shoe? Is it human or animal? The viewer's gaze through each layer of the shoe is then followed by understanding, which Roland Barthes’s claims is the purpose of the analogical message: the shoe is associated with both a foot and a hoove through resemblance. This returns back to the idea of the theatrical nature of avant-garde fashion that can be identified through every artistic disciple – from cubism to surrealism. Why stick to traditional methods of representation when the mind is capable of producing a deeper understanding of the world around it once it is challenged?
Tatsuya Kitimaya, Lasts for the tabi boots, 1991
Epitomized in Maison Margiela’s Spring Runway 1996, Autumn/Winter Runway 1997, and Tabi Shoe collections, the paradigm shift from the expectation of ready-made and couture clothing as conventional, to the idea that clothing is a canvas for artistic expression and deliberate conversation is made evident as the product of artistic inspiration. What made Martin Margiela so influential during his time as Creative Director was his ability to reinterpret classic garments, and breathe life into a dying language of fashion. The designer’s commitment to the unexpected qualities of trompe l’oeil, deconstruction, and the manipulation of visual elements for the purpose of reframing the narrative of fashion originated in Martin Margiela’s desire to deconstruct the stagnant of the language of fashion, and allow room for further discussion on societal, cultural, and temporal topics. Ideas such as the meaning of layers of linguistic and analogical rhetoric, the erasing of the original image inside of the frame, and the informal use of the human body using formal elements are only a few of the pieces that Martin Margiela has left as part of his lexicon of fashion. To become arguably the most influential wearable artist means to have the power to take inspiration, dissect it, and produce something even more influential in its place.
Xoxo,
Annie
