Abandoned supermarket
55, Rue de Meaux,
Paris, 19th Arrondissement
October 9-17, 1993
Five years had elapsed since Margiela's first show at Café de la Gare, yet no fashion show would mark this eleventh season. Instead, there were presentations by appointment at an abandoned supermarket transformed into a showroom. For nine days, the press, buyers, and the Maison Martin Margiela team gathered at this location for an unprecedented collection that contained no new designs. For the first time in the history of fashion, a designer presented a "retrospective" collection that reinvented all of his favorite pieces. The outfits, made from the same materials as the originals, were differentiated by a unifying gray hue and the date of their design, stamped in black on the label, which had usually Large sales tables were placed in front of 10 painted white clothes rails, one per collection. The sales book did not consist of technical drawings as usual, but instead assembled press reports on each garment with a photo and the order code.
Near the entryway, the house's "artisanal" studio was reconstructed: pieces of broken dishes became new waistcoats, recovered jeans were painted against a wall.... Further back, a video showed excerpts from each show. Martin Margiela had selected the looks from the most memorable pieces without regard for their success in the press or stores. At the sound of a bell, 10 women lined up against the wall to have their photo taken.
In chronological order, each of them wore one look from one collection, indicated by a wide stencil-painted black inscription on their throat or arm, from "SS8," to "FW93-94." Certain makeup and staging was repeated, from the mirror-colored nails of Fall-Winter 1989-90 to the rhinestones at the corners of the eyes from Spring-Summer 1992. Those in-che-know recognized the tattooed T-shirt from the first collection, worn over a flared skirt made from a deconstructed pair of jeans. They again saw the broken dish waistcoat from Fall-Winter 1989-90 and the giant tank top under a mesh T-shirt, along with a supermarket bag worn as a top from Spring-Summer 1990. There was also a broomstick-knit "punk" sweater paired with an inner dress lining, worn as a dress, from that Fall-Winter. A ball gown from Spring-Summer 1991 preceded a sweater made of men's socks that appeared in Fall-Winter. From Spring-Summer 1992, there were scarves re-covered and transformed into tops or apron skirts and long dresses made from 1970s-era leather coats, worn backward. The historic theater costumes, worn as jackets for Spring-Summer and the long dresses made from 1940s-era dresses for Fall-Winter represented 1993.
This retrospective collection was Margiela’s response to the fashion system, to its frantic rhythm, and to the absurdity of the constant need for something new each season. This presentation was also the result of requests from customers, who were disappointed about not having been able to order a specific piece from earlier shows that they had missed.
What the 1o collections had in common was that they were primarily long garments, extending down to the ankles. They all also contained iconic pieces, from the jacket to the narrow-shouldered blazer, and the dress linings, which were made over without being repeated, forming the fundamentals of style as imagined by Martin Margiela. As the press recognized, the designer had great influence, including on other fashion houses: "Martin's influence on current fashion is eloquently displayed by his spring collection. There is not a single new piece, just his favorites from his previous collections, all coloured in grey and carefully dated with their year of design. [..] all invented here but seen on many international catwalks for the first time this season."
