Maison Margiela Artisanal: Martens makes a stumbling debut

In a quiet haute couture season in Paris, the city needed a major wow-factor debut, but it did not really get one at Glenn Martens’ first show for Maison Margiela Artisanal on Wednesday night.

There were undoubtedly some moments of real magic, notably some highly distinctive aviary action – from sublime feathered looks, to some bold and brilliant tailored coats made in a Renaissance style prints of game birds.
 
The final evening dresses in crepe and silk finished in small clouds of lace showed a highly skilled draper at work. To those, we add a kicky series of mashed up interior fabrics, which one imagined founder Martin Margiela would have loved.

However, the decision to cover every model’s head with a mask, skullcap or even cooper pot eventually felt tired and repetitive. It also meant many of the cast were forced to plod ponderously around the show space.  Post-show, many iPhone videos that editors shot looked like slo-mos even if they were filmed in real time.

Staged in 104, a north Paris art and theater show-space where Martin Margiela staged shows, the set was a mock marble palace that had fallen on hard times.
 
Martens’ opening looks had plenty of punch: a series of dresses and gowns made in scrunched up plastic, with no underwear visible.  Their accompanying masks were scrunched up plastic too.
 
A splendid conical dress followed in a shade of degraded concrete, with lining and skullcap made of silvery beading. Born as the conceptual brand par excellence, a series on dark suits or the house’s signature painted jeans covered in muddy plastic seemed logical.

Then Glenn went into overdrive with two humungous yellow gold and blackened silver metallic dresses, leotards and masks were superbly theatrical.
 
However, while the clothes must have been complicated to make they were clearly even more complicated to wear. Many models could barely move their legs. And the cast hesitated to even turn as they marched through the various rooms and corridors of the set.
 

Several strums of a Spanish guitar announced the beginning of this show, whose crescendo was The Smashing Pumpkins’ “Disarm”. But this show did not disarm or enchant.
 
Martens always had a hard act to follow, seeing as the final couture show of his predecessor was the most acclaimed fashion show of the decade. Martens has always been a very talented designer, and still seems a good fit for Margiela.

However, all told, this show looked like a pale shadow of that final epic Galliano display.