The MM6 show was staged in a waiting room at Milan’s Centrale Station. Commuters gaped as the fashion throng made its way up the marble steps. In their Tabis and eye shields, this crew wasn’t headed home to the suburbs on the late train. Still, it was a fitting location for this most street-ready part of brand Margiela, especially with the collective in the design studio doing a close study of archetypes and the everyday clothes they wear.
In the Martin Margiela way, making the normal abnormal was the exercise here. Coat hems were turned up and snapped in place to protect them from bike splashes and other mundane dangers; pencil skirts were actually just backless aprons worn over long T-shirts for modesty’s sake, and shirt seams hinted at the vestiges of yokes that once were. Jeans, the most omnipresent of daily garments, got a lot of play. On the boys, they came with double waistbands, the top layer suggestively undone; the girls wore theirs high-waisted and pegged in the 1980s style.
The ’80s were apparently a flashpoint, in particular for the full skirts with the ruffled hems paired with a flannel button-down and a mohair turtleneck, among other things. The oversize sweaters with the brand’s numeric logo intarsia’d at the chest looked more contemporary worn as they were with thick tights. Also believable: the his-and-hers color-blocked track jacket and anorak. For the corporate demographic, there were trim v-necks worn over flaring shirts, with slim skirts or sturdy leather jeans.
If there was a wrong step it was the extra high pumps. Any close look at the street, even in dressy-by-other-world-capital-standards Milan, will tell you that the preferred footwear of the moment prioritizes comfort and/or speed. These days, heels like these are typically stashed in an oversize bag or, better yet, underneath an office desk. Otherwise, though, you could picture basically any of these models peeling off after the finale, clipping down the steps, and disappearing into the Italian night.
