maison martin margiela

Marc Jacobs's spring boudoir expose was accused for being too literal of a reference from one of his heroes, Martin Margiela. Well, looking at his spring collection that criticism isn't too far off. The deconstruction of traditional ideas, concentration on fit and the body, and posing modern questions about what it means to be a woman, sexy, or all of the above are as present in this collection as they were in what will surely be one of Jacobs's most infamous collections. However, Jacobs seemed more tongue and cheek and romantic where as Margiela for spring is a little harder and severe. Opening a show with a model blindfolded and covered in a nude tube top means you're up to something. What is that something? Bondage and fragmentation, baby.

Theorists and critics have long debated the issue of female fragmentation in art (that is framing the female body in a violent, choppy, male-gaze sort of way), but has that been confronted in fashion. Clothes are who we are and what we are and when they reveal or shield certain body parts there is some form of picking apart the female form. It's interesting to think of it in a contemporary way with the onslaught of train wreck pop stars and the like who are content with leaping out of an expensive sports car pantiless or allowing an occasional nipple slide out of a flimsy top. The vagina and breasts are certainly an area of interest and repulsion in mainstream media, but hands, eyes, lips, legs, feet equally tantalize us in the most fetishistic ways imaginable. Margiela's eye was unrelenting in its sensual covering up or revealing of body parts. His decision to conceal the model's eyes evoked a feeling of S&M and bondage but could it also suggest censorship? Bare the nude torso wherein we forget about the eyes? Wrists were cuffed in black and material clung to the body to divide it up in the most erotic and intelligent ways. The diabolic combination of nude and black has never seemed so poignant than in this collection. Forget color, we're talking about the body here. What an interesting antidote to New York and Milan's inward definition of body conscious where what is underneath the clothes is more important than what is on the body. Margiela didn't aim to victimize his women and did so by giving them Byrne-esque shoulders that emphasized a woman's irrepressible power even when exploited for their body parts. Imagine a naughty Katherine Hepburn and you have the idea. Evening pieces with beading over the black jersey made the women appear as if they were skinny dipping in the Seine late at night. What a great way to begin Paris.