Fashion designer Martin Margiela was born in Louvain, Belgium in 1957. After completing his studies at the Royal Academy of Fine Art in Antwerp in 1979, he began his career as a freelance fashion stylist. In 1982, Margiela moved to Paris to work as a design assistant for Jean Paul Gaultier, where he remained until 1987, when he founded his own company with Jenny Meirens, Maison Martin Margiela.
In 1988, the house presented its first women’s ready-to-wear collection in Paris. This was also the year Margiela established his artisanal collection, which presented new designs reconstructed using existing garments and accessories to infer ideas of rebirth. Margiela’s interest in anonymity and transgression has been central to his work. He chose to hide his personal identity from the public and became known for obscuring models’ faces. Born also from his desire for anonymity, but now an iconic signifier of a Margiela garment, he used nondescript white cotton tape and numbered labels, secured by four white hand-stitches visible on the exterior of the garment.
In fashion, the year 1997 is known as the ‘big bang’. At this time, haute couture was rejuvenated by the appointment of emerging designers at several heritage houses, such as Alexander McQueen at Givenchy and John Galliano at Christian Dior. Simultaneously, the emblematic collections of provocateurs such as Margiela, Thierry Mugler, Rei Kawakubo and Jean Paul Gaultier became the catalyst for the fashion of the new millennium.
Created for Margiela’s 1997 spring–summer collection and generously donated by Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM, Dress and apron exemplifies Margiela’s appropriation of vintage fabrics and linings as outer layers in his designs. Garments are literally turned inside out, with manufacturing processes such as lining, seams, darts and paper patterns displayed as embellishment. Constructed from vintage dress linings, this work exemplifies Margiela’s deconstructive design approach, referencing fashion history and documenting the passage of time. This approach is among his most influential and enduring, signalling Margiela’s interest in the idea of deconstruction and anonymity in fashion.
Dress and apron augments the representation of Margiela’s 1997 collection in the NGV Collection, complementing another seminal design, Bodice, which is numbered and lettered in reference to the traditional dressmaker form. Printed on the bottom of the bodice are the words ‘semi couture’ – a reminder of the hands involved throughout the entire process of creating any garment, from its tailoring to its hand-stitched finishes. Here, Margiela uses iconography of the tailor’s atelier while dressing the woman in the shape of fetishised femininity as constructed by the fashion industry.
Maison Margiela’s spring–summer 1997 collection epitomises how Martin Margiela redefined fashion as both an artistic and a commercial entity. He chose to retire in 2008, writing in a rare public statement ten years later that he ‘felt that [he] could not cope any more with the worldwide increasing pressure and the overgrowing demands of trade’. Despite stepping away from the industry, Martin Margiela’s unyielding impact on fashion history continues to influence designers to redefine the parameters of fashion practice.
Charlotte Botica is Curatorial Project Officer, Fashion and Textiles at the National Gallery of Victoria.