Maison Margiela Spring 2016 Couture
Fashion is a mad, mad, absolutely mad world—and the real world outside has gone even more incredibly insane. So there was something cathartic about watching as bonkers a show as the one John Galliano put on for Maison Margiela’s Artisanal collection—a place where he can be free to channel nonsensicalness and throw fabric around to his heart’s content.
MM6 Maison Margiela Resort 2016
The look of MM6 often centers on the clash of ideologies. For Resort, it was the dramatic versus the everyday. Sequined, thigh-high boots were paired with a seamed-waist utility jacket that flared out slightly at the hips, while a synthetic shearling vest was worn with a pair of machine-washable pleather pants so light and loose they could almost be mistaken for lambskin.
Whats Next for Maison Margiela?
When Margiela started, it was a new proposition. It was ice cool. The four stitches were a smoke signal to the initiated. This is what Richard Gray, executive fashion director of “The Sunday Times Style,” told us. It’s a sentiment echoed throughout Yoox’s mini documentary, “The Artist Is Absent.” If you’ve not seen it, it’s a handy reminder of what made Margiela a covetable label in the first place. His use of deconstruction, mixed with an expert’s hand at cutting and tailoring, made Margiela one of the most popular designers during his heyday.
Maison Margiela Spring 2015 Couture
This most arcane of fashion houses called for an alchemist as much as a designer, and with Galliano, that's exactly what it got.
Maison Martin Margiela Spring 2015 Couture
There was often poetry in Martin Margiela's ability to infuse new life into the overlooked, the discarded, the scorned. It was even more distinctive in his label's Artisanal offshoot, where the provenance of all the vintage bits and pieces that went into the collection made fascinating reading. With the clarity of hindsight in the wake of his own debut for Artisanal today, it seems odd that anyone could ever have doubted that John Galliano wasn't a dream choice for Margiela. This most arcane of fashion houses called for an alchemist as much as a designer, and with Galliano, that's exactly what it got.
John Galliano Named as Creative Director at Maison Martin Margiela
John Galliano has joined Maison Martin Margiela as creative director, Renzo Rosso, the Italian entrepreneur and president of OTB, which owns the house, has announced. Galliano’s first show, for the “artisanal line” will be held during Paris couture week in January. The artisanal line, formerly designed by Matthieu Blazy, is the house’s closest thing to haute couture. And doubtless, it’ll get closer, what with the wisdom of fifteen years experience of Christian Dior’s couture that Galliano brings with him.
John Galliano Spring 2014 RTW Collection
Grace Coddington Talks About Her Memoir
When we were offered the rare opportunity to interview Grace Coddington, the longtime creative director of Vogue (and the breakout star of "The September Issue"), we were thrilled. Even more so once we read her recently published memoir Grace. Witty and full of funny anecdotes about her journey from the small town of Anglesey, Wales to the front row of every major fashion show, the book was like gossiping with a colleague about the ins and outs of our industry. In the book, Coddington describes her adventures in modeling in London, her love of cats and, of course, her long tenure at Vogue, working side-by-side with Anna Wintour.
Vogue: Monsieur Simons: Raf Simons at Dior
Simons was born in January 1968 to Jacques Simons and Alda Beckers in Neerpelt, which was “in the middle of nowhere, a village between cows and sheep.” Both parents came from big families, and gatherings with aunts, uncles, and cousins fostered a sense of community and togetherness that Simons, an only child, was drawn to. “I’d run to the next farm, where they had ten kids, and I would become the eleventh.” It wasn’t a life of privilege or wealth, but it was one of absolute love and dignity. “I am superproud of my parents—my mother was a cleaning lady, and my father was a night watchman in the army,” says Simons. “And now I stand in this world, and yeah, it’s a bourgeois environment, in a house that’s seen in France as the most important position in fashion, along with Chanel. But I don’t care about that. What I find amazing is that it’s a beautiful house where I can make clothes to make women happy. I was raised in a very happy nest by very happy people, and I like to think that those are enough ingredients to make me succeed at Dior.”
Nick Knight In Bloom
For his latest exhibition, opening at SHOWstudio’s London gallery October 11 during the Frieze Art Fair, Nick Knight holed up in a herbarium and spent over three years studying flower specimens. Not your usual fashion photography project by the lensman known for his collaborations with designers like Alexander McQueen and John Galliano, that’s for sure. “Going through the 6.5 million specimens in the Natural History Museum was not only intense because it took my wife and I three and a half years, but it was also an extraordinary project because the act of capturing each of our most favorite discoveries was rigorous,” he tells Style.com of the project, entitled Flora.
Karlie Kloss, Coco Rocha, Leandra Medine and More Talk House of Style in MTV’s New Doc VIDEO
Remember a couple of weeks ago when we told you about the return of House of Style? Well, it’s started–with a 22-minute documentary about the awesome ’90s TV show, which debuted online yesterday. It’s a welcome trip down memory lane and perfect merging of the old and the new, with clips of Cindy Crawford taking Duran Duran shopping at Sears and reminding us of a time when MTV was good, followed by clips of relative newcomers like Coco Rocha and Kat Graham obsessing over all of it and comparing it to the way things are now (less fun).
Some particularly entertaining clips from the original series include an interview with John Galliano from 1993 after his first show (Comments Mr. Mickey in the doc: “I don’t think anyone could sit in a room alone with John Galliano with a camera [now].”), a darker-haired, youthful Anna Wintour talking about the 90s model obsession, Cindy Crawford singing “Mmmbop” with Hanson, and a mall shopping trip with the Spice Girls.
Other commenters include Crawford herself, Daisy Fuentes, Azealia Banks (a perfect current example of when music and fashion come together), Charlotte Ronson, and Leandra Medine, who says she “grew up on” the show. This got us wondering: Could this documentary have some hints as to whom the new House of Style host will be? Some of our guesses made appearances: Karlie Kloss, Coco Rocha, and we almost included Leandra and Kat Graham. Suspiciously absent: Alexa Chung, who we still sorta think would be perfect despite her first failed MTV show.
We think Rocha had some of the most insightful comments, Graham seemed most enthusiastic, and they also gave a lot of air time to Brit musician Rita Ora.
Twenty-seven year old French designer Maxime Simoens may not be going to Dior anytime soon, but LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault may still be courting him for something. WWD‘s Miles Socha is reporting that Arnault is investing in Simoens’ eponymous label, which is only two years old. Quite a departure from Arnault’s recent targets like Bulgari and Hermès.
Arnault is also the Chairman of Christian Dior, with whom Simoens was said to be in talks just a few weeks before Raf Simons was announced as John Galliano’s successor. The WWD article suggest that Arnault intends to “keep an eye on” Simoens for future openings at some of LVMH’s other big houses.
Rumors of Simoens’ negotations with Dior were reported the same day he showed his first and last collection for French fashion house Leonard. He said his departure from Leonard would leave him “free to concentrate on new projects.” Even if that project isn’t Dior, he’s getting a pretty sweet deal for his label, which he shows at Paris couture week. If there’s anything significant to be gleaned from this acquisition it’s that Simoens is definitely one to watch.
On Wednesday, the Paris fashion house will announce that Raf Simons will take over immediately as artistic director, replacing John Galliano, who was fired from Dior last year after he made anti-Semitic remarks. His first collection is planned for July at the fall haute couture shows.
The choice of Mr. Simons culminates more than a year of discussions and apparent soul searching by Dior and its boss, Bernard Arnault, who is chairman of LVMH, about the ideal person to give creative direction to the 66-year-old luxury brand.
In an interview Monday, Mr. Simons expressed delight at the appointment. “The first time I heard about the Dior position,” he said, “I thought, ‘This feels right.’ ”
We've been so distracted by the driver's seat at Dior that we nearly forgot about Galliano's suspended career — but not about his beanie and twenties-style mustache. Buried in a longer story on Derek Lam leaving his post as Tod's creative director, comes the following teaser:
Lam’s departure coincides with continued speculation that John Galliano was in talks with the Italian firm to either do a Tod’s capsule collection or revamp its Schiaparelli brand. However, [chairman Diego] Della Valle firmly dismissed the rumors.
Dang, Della Valle. Schiaparelli has been without a head designer since its acquisition in 2007 and we're sort of sweet on the idea of Galliano at the helm. In any case, as Fashionista points out, the "Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada: On Fashion" Costume Institute exhibit is scheduled for May at the Met, setting the perfect scene for a big job announcement.
Just about every time Topshop CEO Sir Philip Green is in the same room as a famous person, he or she is suddenly rumored to be getting a Topshop line. In just the past year, it’s happened with John Galliano, Gwyneth Paltrow, Florence Welch–none of whom actually went on to design anything. So we’re naturally a bit skeptical about this latest report that rapper-turned-designer Kanye West, who has been preparing for his next Paris Fashion Week outing in London, is in talks with Green to create a Topshop range of his own.
According to the UK’s Daily Mirror, West and Green were spotted having lunch together (which is true), where they were “brainstorming” ideas. A “mole” told the paper, “Kanye has wanted to work with Sir Philip Green for some time. They were in the restaurant for several hours tossing ideas back and forth.” Hmm.
Sir Phillip Green, who is often quick to extinguish rumors of this nature and is probably, understandably, fed up with them, told the Mirror they just had lunch because they were hungry and he was doing a favor for his 19-year-old son who is apparently friends with West. “I had lunch with him and, sorry, do I have to report who I have lunch with in the Daily Mirror? He was very hungry. So was I. That’s what happens at lunchtime. There was no conversation going on. He’s a friend of my son.”
