My final for my 20th Century Designers class was inspired by Martin Margiela. I created a four look collection after researching Margiela, his techniques, and the impact he has had on the industry. I wanted to incorporate Margiela’s love of showing the process of how clothes are made along with his sustainability of using unconventional materials.
1. In Look 1 the skirt is made out of newspaper. I used Margiela’s technique of body paint to continue the newspaper pattern onto the model’s arms. The top is made to look like newspaper when it is rolled up how the paper boy would throw it at your doorstep.
2. Margiela’s team always had white lab coats on which I used to make into a pair of pants. Two lab coats would make one pair of pants with the opening on the side to show her hip. The top is completely made out of thrifted suit ties.
3. The third look has a shirt with seams on the outside to show part the process of it being made. The sections of the top are blocked to mimic the sections of an adjustable dress form. The shorts have a belt with the dial of the belt being the way to make them tighter or looser. The dial is also the dial that is on an adjustable dress form that changes the size of it. This look is a nod to Margiela’s 1997 collection where he showed looks made to resemble the dress form. My look is a modern version of his with us now having adjustable dress forms.
4. My final look is made out of a big roll of sketchbook paper. The paint on the model’s body is made to look like the rings of a spiral sketchbook. The notebook paper is fraying at the edges to show its age. I imagine if Margiela were to have designed this look that it would be covered in his quick sketches for his next collection.
I purposefully left the models with no face or skin because Margiela stressed the importance of the clothes, not the people wearing it. This is why he typically covered the models faces and even never showed his face because he wanted the clothes to be the spotlight.
