MM6 Maison MargielaFall/Winter 2021
For Autumn/Winter 2021, MM6 Maison Margiela moves into reverse mode. Revolved inside out, upside down and back-to-front, traditional pieces reveal new design dimensions for a reborn wardrobe inspired by these topsy turvy times. This collection began with a simple question: how do pieces transform when their iconic parts are slightly rearranged, or totally scrambled? The result is a complete macro/micro design reset.
Genres change: a blouse becomes a casual top with satin shoulder pads and seams exposed on the outside; the signature MM6 lab coat in reverse shearling is ready for rugged weather and a Nordic patterned sweater in inside-out jacquard knit resembles a tattered, kaleidoscopic piece of tapestry. Anamorphosis flipped portrait prints of composers Sibelius, Satie and Ravel on T-shirts provoke a second look, and the double handled clutch with hanging chain is delightfully upside down. Bourgeois conventions of good taste are cheekily corrupted in a back to back trench dress paired with a generic grocery bag and pumps, while a tad of gaudy humor is evoked in faux-pearl ear pendants with fastenings on both ends.
Reinvention is a kind of rebirth, a deeply creative process of destruction and reconstruction. This MM6 remix takes its cue from diverse artistic sources: the experiments with chords, rhythm, repetition and form by early 20th century French avant-garde composer Erik Satie, Artist Marcel Duchamp’s playful Ready-Mades, the environmental sounds of mid-20th century radical American composer John Cage and Andy Warhol’s advert and celebrity obsessed Pop art in the 1960s.
To illustrate this wardrobe transformation, MM6 Maison Margiela created the atmosphere of a French cabaret from the 20s – the 1920s – where avant-garde musicians, writers and artists came to play music, converse and hang out. The collection film features an intimate club filled with habitués seated at café tables close to the stage for a Autumn/Winter 2021 show, listening to a temperamentally warped piano score, which rewinds occasionally, and where the beginning and the end are mischievously intertwined.
The MM6 Maison Margiela x Eastpak collaboration debuts in the film. MM6 deconstructs the codes of Eastpak’s signature canvas backpack and bum bag making them entirely reversable.
