Haute couture is returning to the runway, thanks to one of fashion’s most legendary names: John Galliano, Maison Margiela’s current creative director.
Maison Margiela’s newest SS24 couture collection debuted last Thursday in what can only be described as a theatrical, surreal runway show located underneath the Pont Alexandre Ⅲ in Paris. Utilizing the natural moonlight and concrete streets of Paris, Galliano owned the night time atmosphere, making the architecture of the city the backdrop for his stunning design.
As described in Maison Margiela’s press release regarding the new collection, the runway show was “a walk through the underbelly of Paris, offline.”
Instead of a typical runway show made streamlined by the “quiet luxury” invasion of the fashion industry, Galliano’s Margiela show was a wholly intoxicating performance, producing an energy so palpable that it transcends through thousands of videos circulating online.
Galliano conjured the spirit of Brassaï's famous photographs that depict the darker side of Parisian nightlife. As if a Toulouse-Lautrec painting had come to life, Galliano’s models strode from the streets of Paris to a decrepit “speakeasy” constructed just for the show.
The night began with a dramatic musical performance by “Lucky Love,” a French Freddy Mercury impersonator and drag queen, followed by a black-and-white short film by Baz Luhrmann.
Leon Dame, a prolific model for Margiela since 2018, opened the show in a spine-binding corset, sprinting to the runway as if running from something sinister, clutching his body, and then proceeding to stride.
The models who walked the show took notes from Dame’s theatrics. Some were doubled over as if in pain, some were teetering down the runway as if ready to tip over, some walked gracefully, and some moved stiffly, as if being controlled by an omniscient puppeteer or animatronics.
In a new move for Galliano, the models were all of varying body types, but not in a way that felt performative. Rather, the difference in body types of the models exhibited the shaping of the clothes in diverse ways, adding to the striking lines of the collection.
Legendary makeup artist Pat McGrath did the doll-like makeup for the show, giving the models glossy, latex-like skin that appeared to be plastic, making them appear as animatronic dolls brought to life.
With disheveled hair and doll-like skin, the entire show gave a transcendental feel, eliciting an atmosphere of a bygone, underground Moulin Rouge Paris through the haunting ghosts of Paris past.
Actress Gwendoline Christie closed the show in a latex gown, embodying a porcelain doll with paper-pale skin and blonde ringlet curls.
This new collection, which Galliano spent 12 months designing, emphasized the limits and malleability of the human body, with painful-looking corsets pulling models’ bodies in unnatural ways. Completely sheer, chiffon-like garments contrasted with heavier pieces such as heavy trench coats, scarves, and sweaters, but the motif of silhouette-shaping corsets remained the same throughout.
Galliano created 15 new composition techniques to bring his vision to life, including “seamlace,” “milletrage,” and “retrograding,” according to the press release.
The couture show was reminiscent of the dramatic and avant-garde shows that Alexander McQueen and Galliano were known for in the 1990s; it has been a while since the fashion world has seen anything of that caliber until last week, and certainly not since the social media age.
After being fired from his iconic tenure at Dior as creative director in 2011 due to an antisemitic rant, Galliano has kept a relatively low-profile since joining Maison Margiela as its creative director in 2014.
Known for staging his camp, dramatic fashion shows with historical nods to bygone eras, it appears that Galliano is returning to his M.O. with the most daring collection he has produced in decades, reminiscent of what made him an icon in the first place and captivating fashion enthusiasts worldwide.
For Gen Z fashion lovers who have only seen Galliano’s and McQueen’s theatrical runway shows in archival videos, magazines, or articles, this show is a resurgence of haute couture eliciting nostalgia from the ‘90s runway magic. However, even with obvious historical motifs, the show felt strikingly modern and innovative.
As Vogue’s Creative Editorial Director Mark Guiducci wrote, Maison Margiela’s SS24 couture collection is “The John Galliano Show My Generation Has Been Waiting For.”