White Show: Hôpital éphémère,
2, Rue Carpeaux, Paris, i8th Arrondissement
Black Show: Garage of the Boris Vian property 8, Cité Véron, Paris, 18th Arrondissement
October IS, 1992, 8:30 p.m.
An ad in a paper revealed an odd lot of men's theater costumes for sale, following the closure of a theater in one of the provinces. Doublets and other cassocks were inspired by historical dress from the Renaissance to the eighteenth century; others reproduced military costumes with frog closures and hussar jackets. Maison Martin
Margiela bought it all. However, the collection was in poor condition and required patches to hide holes and rips. The sleeves were mainly taken off and used alone. The tattered lace false sleeves (engageantes) were made into fluttering bracelets; the skirts of damaged dresses were cut, their sleeves and bodices turned into tops. The collection that was thus reworked by the "artisanal" studio contained long and short vests, tops, jackets, and detached sleeves. Then came an idea to dye these pieces in two groups: one half was over-dyed black, while the other was over-dyed white, producing unusual pastel shades.
"During the chaotic week of the Paris collections, when the press and buyers traditionally rush from show to show in a single, monolithic unit, Martin Margiela broke with tradition, and in so doing they neatly cleaved the fashion flock in two. The unpredictable designer, consistent only in his unorthodoxy, daringly staged two shows in different parts of the city at exactly the same time."
Since the brand's creation, the spaces chosen for the shows had required the fashion crowd to go beyond its usual haunts. While some complained, others rejoiced.
The Spring-Summer 1993 season was presented in the 18th Arrondissement. The white show was held at the Hôpital éphémère -2 —an abandoned hospital that had been converted into an artists' squat —while the black show was held in the empty garage of a property in Cité Véron that had supposedly belonged to Boris Vian.
The white cardboard invitations were in the shape of large letters. Guests spoke to one another and discovered that they had not been invited to the same show. Many of them called Maison Martin Margiela to try to figure out why. Yet the typed note stapled to the invitations was clear: "This invitation is only valid for the address indicated.
At each of the two locations, guests stood on either side of a carpeted podium. At the white show, models had pale skin, their eyebrows covered left
with foundation, wearing long, whitish false lashes. Models in the black show had their eyes barred with a long, irregular strip of black paint.
There had been no specific hairstyling since the Spring-Summer 1991 collection. The models walked out with their natural hair, as if going to an audition. Such disregard contrasted with Margiela’s elaborate outfits. The only accessories for this double show right were pendants made out of boxwood branches, which had been collected from nearby parks. They hung from ribbons as necklaces or placed at the waist, attached with transparent tape. In some cases, rose leaves were scotch-taped directly onto the skin. A safety pin was the only fastener on the historic jackets.
Linings detached from the leather jackets of the Fall-Winter 1992-93 collection were reused as tunics. A ruffled, asymmetrical skirt with one side raised — inspired by the skirts Ingrid Bergman wore to her theater rehearsals in the 1940s—was paired with a sweater with exposed seams. At the white show, a faded pastel hussar jacket was cut into a vest. The collection launched a new silhouette-that of a wide men's jacket with the shoulders narrowed to adapt to a woman's form. The sleeves were worn extra-long, and a thin, white leather belt cinched the waist. Depending on its length, this belt was also used as a necklace, a bracelet, or a ring, and even on the models' tocs. The jacket was paired with an off-white, ribbed, cotton knit dress with the shoulder straps left to fall onto the hips.
Last was an exact reproduction of a long men's coat dating to the late eighteenth century, worn by barefooted models wearing toe rings made from a strip of leather with a metal. Nickel silver "cuff." were placed around the elbows on the sleeves of the white or black cotton "dresses" then fastened in front by hooks.- 3
For the white show's finale, all of the models arrived holding lighters, waving them as if at a concert. In the black show, the models returned to the podium, holding up glimmering sparklers -4 that pierced through the darkness.
