“The last fashion show of the haute couture season in Paris has just ended, and here I am, sitting in my hotel room, eating fries and still in shock from the fashion fantasy at Margiela,” writes on Instagram the American journalist Derek Blasberg.
And to continue: “The best of Galliano.
The pomp, the circumstances, the drama, the people crying in their seats.
Real, real tears!
The lace, the silhouettes, the hand-sewn sequins streaming like raindrops, the
drama
.”
For his part, journalist Clément Laré from
Stylist
magazine confirms, in a publication from the Instagram account @stylenotcom, that he “cried while watching the fashion show, because that’s what good fashion does to the mind.”
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Comments like these have been found in hundreds on social networks since the presentation of John Galliano's haute couture collection for Maison Margiela, delivered on the evening of January 25 under the Alexandre III bridge in Paris.
The event, halfway between a fashion show and an artistic happening, did not leave its spectators indifferent.
“I shed a few tears because of this superb collection which tells a story in the style of John Galliano's classic fashion show”, relates an Internet user on X. And to complete: “A phenomenal spectacle to close this haute couture week !”
On the Instagram accounts of people invited to attend the parade, reactions are heard in comments or captions of videos posted immediately.
“Speechless”, “I can cry, it’s so beautiful”, they express themselves.
“This is how much people loved it.
Applause and thunder of shouts for five minutes,” wrote Luigi Vitali, the editor-in-chief of
Dust
magazine, in the story .
In the video which accompanies the text, we indeed notice a standing ovation.
Luigi Vitali adds that “living this experience was transformative”, and specifies in a publication that this parade was “perhaps the most incredible I have ever seen.”
Maison Margiela haute couture spring-summer 2024 show. (Paris, January 25, 2024.) Xinhua / Xinhua/ABACA
“Scary and Fabulous”
To provoke so many emotions, the artistic director of Maison Margiela saw the big picture.
The hour's delay is quickly forgiven when the artist Lucky Love opens the show.
After the screening of a black and white short film which sets the mood, Leon Dame, the star model of the house, makes an appearance.
To a tune by the singer Adele and dressed in suit pants, he strolls down the wooden podium, his waist tightened in a corset and his head covered in a beret.
Her vaporous gait and mysterious gaze set the tone of the collection.
“The makeup, the “face coverings”, the strange presence of a doll with broken fingers... it was so scary it was fabulous,” one user shares on X.
“We want to watch it several times to unravel its mysteries”
“Galliano has the power to turn our guts inside out.
Beyond fashion, it takes the mind, history, poetry, the human condition on a journey,” explains an Internet user in a video posted on Instagram by journalist Sophie Fontanel.
And to outbid: “Fashion is a fantasy.
It’s a phantasmagorical, unreal parade that you want to watch several times to unravel its mysteries.”
After a busy week of haute couture, John Galliano offered here a break.
A moment where we take the time to contemplate.
Not just the rooms, but also the decor, the models' approach, the atmosphere, the immediate reactions of the guests.
“Not only do you have to see the clothes, but you also have to articulate them through the models and the sets to give birth to an iconic moment,” develops @boymolish on X.
The theatrical staging is reminiscent of the fashion of yesteryear, like the Alexander McQueen fashion shows which ended in flames, or with a hologram of Kate Moss.
At a time when couture is promoting sobriety as modernity, the Margiela presentation goes back to basics.
Here, dandies and dissolute girls emerge from the catacombs and haunt the dark streets of Paris.
“This collection looked like the ones from the 1990s and 2000s, it makes me so nostalgic.
It’s honestly breathtaking,” we can read on X.
Here lies perhaps the key to the enigma of this “show show”: the expression of John Galliano’s unique style.
Like the collections that the British designer designed when he arrived at Dior in 1997, or the reactions provoked following his famous spring-summer 2006 when he gave carte blanche to all body types.
If there is still an element of mystery, Internet users are almost unanimous: this spring-summer 2024 fashion show will be talked about for a while longer.