Inside Martin Margiela's All-White Maison

In Paris’s quiet and principally residential 11th arrondissement is the home of fashion’s most mysterious players. The residents are justifiably proud of the 3,000 square foot space which they moved into a little over three years ago, which dates back to the 18th century. It has a suitably grand and – more importantly, given the label in question – evocative heritage. For nearly 100 years, this was a convent presided over by the Sisters of Charity, functioning primarily as an orphanage.

In 1939, one M Andre Peuble took over the building and founded the prestigious L’Ecole Professionnelle de Dessin Industriel. The vast majority of Paris’s industrial design luminaries from that period were alumni including the designer of the iconic Klein-blue Gitanes packet, complete with whirling Romany dancer and curling plumes of smoke.

By the time Martin Margiela and his team arrived in December 2004, the place had been empty for a decade or more. The new occupants took up residence, however, only to find the classrooms had been left in just the same state as the day they were vacated – pens in inkwells, exam papers on desks and lessons still chalked on to blackboards, all covered in a thick layer of dust. Suffice to say, anyone who is familiar with the mindset of Martin Margiela might argue that, at 163 rue S Maure, the designer has found his spiritual home. After all, the effect of time passing on the world has been a career-long obsession of his.

It took four months for the building to be prepared for its new purpose, and the powers that be at Maison Martin Margiela adopted just the same approach to the building’s restoration as they apply to everything else they touch. In particular, the use of white – or whites, in Margiela speak – was central.

“There are two reasons for white – one practical, one conceptual,” says a spokesperson. It is the stuff of fashion legend that Margiela himself has never agreed to a face-to-face interview, or to his photograph appearing alongside any profile of his work. All statements that are issued by the house are careful to employ the pronoun “we” instead of “I”, thereby catapulting the concept of the superstar designer into oblivion. “When Jenny (Meirens, the label’s cofounder) and Martin started out they collected furniture from all over the place. They had no money and it was all in different styles, so to make it seem coherent it was all painted white.”

Of course, not just any old white will do. White emulsion is chosen to paint all surfaces for two reasons, both for its matt finish, and the fact that it is impossible to clean – any wear and tear caused by daily comings and goings are therefore left to tell their story for posterity. Paint is never applied to the whole space at the same time, so some of the rooms are almost yellow with age, while others are pristine in appearance – well, not quite.

Text by Susannah Frankel, April 2015 

more : https://www.anothermag.com/fashion-beauty/7363/inside-martin-margielas-all-white-maison

We Margiela

New York - The man, the myth, the legend that is Martin Margiela has inspired a level of fandom in the fashion industry usually reserved for musicians who’ve died too soon. It has only surged since he stepped away from his eponymous company almost ten years ago. While an exhibition in Paris currently presents a greatest hits from the maison’s archive, here in NYC the North American premier of the documentary “We Margiela” telling the story of the origin of his label shows at the Fashion Institute of Technology. A congregation of followers in statement eyewear, nicely tailored coats, hair pinned behind ears, bearing those four white stitches on the nape of their neck file quietly into the auditorium like members of a sect. Someone taking his seat can be heard saying, in awe, “Look at this. We’re all still standing on his shoulders.” Yet none of those gathering would recognize their charismatic leader if he brushed against them later as they spill out onto West 27th Street.

Made up of intimate interviews of the original members of Margiela’s team, with voiceover from his trusted business partner/alter ego, Jenny Meirens, who passed away last year, the documentary offers a deeper understanding of facts that have been known for years: that Margiela vetoed all photos of his face, allowing only his hands to be seen: that everyone who worked there wore a white lab coat emphasizing the egalitarian spirit of “We”, and that his aesthetic, as described by one loyal staffer, was a result of, “Belgian taste, no pretensions, no concessions.” In this age of hyper-recognizability, his anonymity must be truly unfathomable to the new generation of devotees, which surely only augments the myth of him. How could there ever be his like again?

We Margiela: the people behind the man

“Underground doesn’t exist today,” says Lutz Huelle, the house’s knitwear designer hired straight from school when, he admits, none of his classmates even knew the name Martin Margiela. Images of Margiela’s early chaotic shows from the late 80s, staged in dark clubs featuring awkward-looking wan-faced women plucked from the streets stomping by a front row of non-VIPs are best appreciated when we think of the fashion landscape of the time: glamour and supermodels, designers Christian Lacorix, Thierry Mugler and Emmanuel Ungaro (It would be five years before Marc Jacobs would create his grunge collection for Perry Ellis and get fired.) We learn that no one, including the two founders, received much of a salary, but the passion for the work was all encompassing. Stanislas Maryshev, from the maison’s sales department remembers it this way: “You melt in the story. There were no halfway people” Another who remained through the subsequent change of ownership and creative direction describes tearfully a sensation even today of being “in limbo.”

We Margiela: the people behind the man

“Underground doesn’t exist today,” says Lutz Huelle, the house’s knitwear designer hired straight from school when, he admits, none of his classmates even knew the name Martin Margiela. Images of Margiela’s early chaotic shows from the late 80s, staged in dark clubs featuring awkward-looking wan-faced women plucked from the streets stomping by a front row of non-VIPs are best appreciated when we think of the fashion landscape of the time: glamour and supermodels, designers Christian Lacorix, Thierry Mugler and Emmanuel Ungaro (It would be five years before Marc Jacobs would create his grunge collection for Perry Ellis and get fired.) We learn that no one, including the two founders, received much of a salary, but the passion for the work was all encompassing. Stanislas Maryshev, from the maison’s sales department remembers it this way: “You melt in the story. There were no halfway people” Another who remained through the subsequent change of ownership and creative direction describes tearfully a sensation even today of being “in limbo.”

Margiela revolutionized modern fashion

Perhaps the most poignant takeaway from the film is the comedown associated with belonging to this close-knit community. Reminiscent of Andy Warhol’s Factory which sent ripples of change across contemporary art and culture, Maison Martin Margiela’s output revolutionized modern fashion, blowing up everything we thought we knew and reassembling it. But while it could be argued that Warhol removed the soul from the creative process, Margiela firmly instated it at its heart, and this ultimately led to the original maison’s demise. Prolonging that cloistered harmony became impossible the more success Margiela acquired, outside demands weighed heavily on Meirens, and financial concerns intruded. Margiela sold the company to Diesel in 2002 but remained as creative director until 2009. Inge Grognard, the house’s make-up artist, recalls the moment when she knew Margiela had left the building, just upped and quit his company,: it was when she spotted Rihanna backstage at a show. Celebrity endorsement and red carpet dressing were the antithesis of Martin Margiela and irrefutable evidence of the abrupt system change that was about to shake the house. An especially touching moment examining the nature of identity comes through in the words of a loyal member of the “We” who reflects on the experience of being left behind: “There was nothing we could claim for ourselves. You can take away the worth of the individual.”

The argument is made that it is this nebulous quality that appeals to so many. The Martin Margiela phenomenon marked a moment in time when corporate glitz and branding were taking hold that permitted us to privately project whatever we wanted to believe about ourselves onto a blank white rectangular label, onto the whitewashed exposed brick interiors of his stores, even allowing us to do so still on the white screen with white subtitles which appear throughout “We Margiela” as Meirens speaks as if from the great beyond. In Margiela’s work there was a silence that allowed us to figure ourselves out, great presence in the absence. Almost a decade later, this presence has only become stronger, yet there have been no sightings of him ever reported, and he offers us no possibility of social media stalking. And still we melt into the story, no halfway people.

Jackie Mallon,

Thursday, 19 April 2018

https://fashionunited.uk/news/culture/film-review-we-margiela/2018041929178

Στολή, τάξη και αταξία: Η έννοια της στολής στο ντιζάιν, στο δικαιϊκό σύστημα, στην τέχνη, στην ποπ κουλτούρα"

Η στολή ως τρόπος ενδυμασίας παραπέμπει στην άνεση, την ασφάλεια, την απλότητα. Από τις στολές των ιδιωτικών σχολείων, έως των ένστολων κρατικών και στρατιωτικών λειτουργών, η στολή άλλοτε δίνει κύρος, συμβολίζει εξουσία, ρυθμίζει κοινωνικές συμπεριφορές  

Ταυτόχρονα η κατάργηση του ενδυματολογικού κώδικα μπορεί να οδηγήσει σε νέα ενδυματολογικά σύμβολα μίας ανατροπής. Η «στολή» του ανήκειν σε ένα κοσμοπολιτικό περιβάλλον διαφαίνεται σε μικρές λεπτομέρειες του τρόπου που ντυνόμαστε, μιλάμε, υποδεχόμαστε ή αρνούμαστε τις αλλαγές στον τρόπο ζωής μας. 

 Η στολή αναφέρεται στο γούστο της ενδυματολογικής συγκατάβασης. Αποτελεί σύμβολο ελέγχου. Αλλά μεταφέρει και μία αίσθηση δύναμης. Η πιο αποτελεσματική μέθοδος ενσωμάτωσης σε ένα σύνολο είναι η ομοιομορφία της ένδυσης.

Η συζήτηση με θέμα «Στολή, τάξη και αταξία» που γίνεται στο πλαίσιο του 2^ου Κινηματογραφικού Φεστιβάλ Ταινιών Μόδας (14/2, Τεχνοπολις)  εξετάζει πως  η στολή ως ένα  τεχνικό ή επίσημου  χαρακτήρα ενδυματολογικό σύνολο  επηρεάζει τη σύγχρονη μόδα, μεταφέρεται στην ποπ κουλτούρα και χρησιμοποιείται κριτικά στην τέχνη. Από τους συμβολισμούς εξουσίας στην ιστορία του ενδύματος και των θεσμών μέχρι τις  διαφημίσεις του streetwear, από την αυτοκρατορία των λογότυπων έως τη σημερινή λατρεία των κόμικς και των εμπορευματοποιημένων προϊόντων η έννοια της στολής πλέει στον χρόνο και νοηματοδοτεί τις αλλαγές .

Οι καλεσμένοι στη συζήτηση μιλάνε για ενδύματα, συνήθειες με κανονιστικό ή όχι χαρακτήρα και για τη μόδα του «ανήκειν» .

Athens Fashion Film Festival 

19.00 – 19.45PANEL: "Στολή, τάξη και αταξία: Η έννοια της στολής στο ντιζάιν,
στο δικαιϊκό σύστημα, στην τέχνη, στην ποπ κουλτούρα"
Επιμέλεια-παρουσίαση: Έφη Φαλίδα
Ομιλητές: Κωστής Βελώνης, Διονύσης Καββαθάς, Αγγελος Μπράτης,

Κυριακή, 16/2, Αμφιθέατρο της Τεχνόπολης, 19.00 - 19.45.

The diary of a seamstress

The Chrism (‘The Court Jesters’ series), 2017-18

acrylic, oil, pencil and oil pastel on canvas

150 x 150 cm

Art meets fashion. Catalyst for this encounter of contemporary Greek artists, fashion designers and “craftsmen of fashion” has been the Notebook (dated  1958) of a seamstress, who studied  at the Couture House of  Tsopaneli.

The finding has been retrieved by Marika Handji’s grandson, the architect George Kalivis and the sewing lessons of Tsopaneli to his students provide us with an alternative reading of modernity.  From the knowledge of savoir vivre, the learning of pattern cutting for women’s clothes to the set of instructions for technical use of sewing machines, those notes not only are the source of interpretation of an era but also the phenomenon in the year 1958 of Greek fashion itself. Besides it was an epoch when modernization is spread over all social layers and diffused throughout new lifestyles, new labor conditions and leisure time, such as entertainment, excursions, parties, and holidays. 

Fashion, gauge of men and women’s behavior, at the end of 1950s, breaks the limits of «decency» and «beauty» of bodies becoming the ultimate example that highlights modernity.  A series of radical changes manifest through fashion (new styling applications, new behaviors, spreading out of mini skirt and other accessories, new body representations, etc.).  Hence, fashion interweaves with gender social phenomena and institutions and therefore contributes to the democratization of the new and especially to the democratization of the desires. Garments concern every relationship of human beings with their body, alike the relationships of human body with the society.

It is the encounter of artistic creation with design practice. Artists and fashion designers show through their artworks their personal reading of this finding. It is their way to examine and recompose the narration of modernity’s diffusion. While they ask themselves questions about the way Greek reality assimilates, processes and appropriates the phenomenon of fashion or even devalues its production.  

The exhibition re-examines the Notebook of Marika Handji as starting point for the 18 invited artists and fashion designers , because it has the characteristic of “written fashion”, namely of fashion that is translated into language and design, with identifiable elements of new behavior (at savoir faire) and decorative abolition (at the patterns).

It is a valuable token by an unknown apprentice seamstress, who reveals the traces of a profession that was eliminated from the historic and artistic research and narration. The minor aesthetic practice of dressmaking that represents this woman may have sunk into oblivion the years that followed, however its worth of revisiting and rescuing it from the silence and “the aftermath of the later ones” – as the British historian E. P.Thompson notes – with a series of other craft activities, such as weaving, cutting fabrics, even the “utopic” craftsman and all those female figures of household economy that developed during the pre-industrial era. And this not because of nostalgic contemplation. But because today they acquire crucial importance and perspective to all versions of post-industrial economy and new cultural developing practices. The Notebook of the apprentice seamstress gives new meaning not just to the subjective “archive fever” but also to a series of neglected aesthetic methods of modernity that are connected to the craftsmanship and during the last three decades many despised them.

“How far could you go?” This is the question that every generation asks itself, looking for the modern it receives multiple answers through the artworks of the participant artists. The Notebook of the seamstress is transformed into a tool of recording and reviewing. As “Diary” it becomes the background of change in social behaviors that influence not just women, sex matters or ethics but also demanding the re-distribution of social power.  Besides, even nowadays the question wording simply changes – “how far can ideas go?” – emphasizes the changes of fashion and clothing. That reinforces the battlefield between the old  guard (the couture houses trapped in the role of the épater le bourgeois of the dominant social classes) and the “new barbarians” that feel that have the right to demand whatever could float in the atmosphere of contemporary air. 

Participating:«A Whale’s Architects», Bespoke Athens (Vassilis Bourtzalas), ΦΙΡΜΑ GYPSY GLOBALES, Angelos Frentzos, Elias Kafouros , Demi Kaia, George Kalivis, Irini Karayannopoulou, Sophia Kokosalaki,  Maria Mastori,  Olga Miliaresi – Foka, Leda Papakonstantinou, Eva Papamargariti, Alexandros Psychoulis, Nana Sachini, Serapis Maritime Corporation, Stefania Strouza, Kostis Velonis, Zeus & Dione.

Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation ( from the archive with clothes by Tsopanelis’ House )

The exhibition “The Diary of a Seamstress. An Imaginary Biography” curated by Efi Falida, is presented at the gallery a.antonopoulou.art. April 20^th –  May 26^th2018

Hipsters, they’re just like us! “Normcore,” Sarah Palin, and the GOP’s big red state lie

Hipsters, they’re just like us! “Normcore,” Sarah Palin, and the GOP’s big red state lie

Sandwich People

Cubist costumes designed by Ivan Puni as advertisements for his exhibition at Der Sturm Gallery, Berlin, feb.1921.

Souzy Tros (“Suzy Eats”) Art Canteen

The new Souzy Tros canteen will serve fresh, cheap food—such as Greek trahanas and Middle Eastern hummus—to reflect the ethnic mix of the city’s population today as a seed for cultural exchange and re-constructive creativity. It is a project by Greek artist Maria Papadimitriou, in collaboration with American writer Cathryn Drake. Inspired by a famous scene in the 1969 film La Parisienne, in which a Greek tailor’s chubby client claims to be dieting to fit into a new dress but is only getting bigger: “Souzy eats—and lies” can be seen as a metaphor for the Greek state’s denial in the face of the economic crisis, as well as a general global refusal to reform our unsustainable modern lifestyle.
Activating the void of an abandoned industrial space, Souzy Tros is a re-creation of the communal space in the old Greek courtyard houses, where neighbors shared their everyday lives. A community forum sorely lacking in contemporary society, it promoted collective survival and action, as well as simple information exchange, especially crucial in times of hardship. Crises and other disasters tend to fracture populations into defensive groups defined by tribal common denominators, be it religious or ethnic, and Greece has proven this by becoming increasingly polarized as things have worsened.
The latest platform in Papadimitriou’s T.A.M.A. (Temporary Autonomous Museum for All), Souzy Tros will be a long-term project providing vocational training and creative inspiration for both Greek and non-Greek residents through a time-bank system and forums for the expression of ideas by invited guests from various fields. By hosting creative workshops, film screenings, performances, and music that encourage participation from the community, the canteen will serve as a catalyst for bringing creative people together to share their resources.


Organizational team: Elisavet Antapassi, Eftihis Eftimiou, Catherine Economou, Maria Halkias, Nadia Kalara, Dinos Bakounakis, and filmmaker Constantine Giannaris.

Souzy Tros (“Suzy Eats”) Art Canteen
Markoni 8, Elaionas 10447, Athens (50 meters to the left of Eleonas Metro exit)

World of Suzie Wong Tien Huong Singer

World of Suzie Wong Tien Huong Singer, 1961
Photographer: Boris Lipnitzki

Red and yellow shoes

Valerie
Submitted by Christy at My parents were awesome blog

All the Young Cowgirls

On the Street....All the Young Cowgirls, Las Vegas
Source: thesartorialist.blogspot.com

Boys to Men

Boys to Men, Rodeo Style, Las Vegas
Source: thesartorialist.blogspot.com

Cover for Vogue

Giorgio de Chirico
cover for Vogue (British Edition), 8 January 1936
private collection

A Cowboy's Sweetheart

When Patsy montana appeared in the Gene Autry feature film Colorado Sunset in 1939,
she had already gained fame from her million-selling hit, " i want to be a Cowboy's Sweetheart"javascript:void(0)

Utility clothing

Tatlin
Design for man's coat, 1923.
Charcoal on tracing paper, 107x71.5 cm.
Bakhrushin Museum.

How Artists Must Dress

Artists must first of all distinguish themselves from members of the adjacent professional classes typically present at art world events: dealers, critics, curators, and caterers. They must second of all take care not to look like artists. This double negation founds the generative logic of artists' fashion.
The relationship between an artist's work and attire should not take the form of a direct visual analogy. A stripe painter may not wear stripes.
The relationship between an artist's work and attire should function in the manner of a dialectic, in which the discrepancy between the personal appearance of the artist and the appearance of her work is resolved into a higher conceptual unity. An artist's attire should open her work to a wider range of interpretive possibilities.
The artist's sartorial choices are subject to the same hermeneutic operations as are his work. When dressing, an artist should imagine a five-paragraph review of his clothes—the attitudes and intentions they reveal, their topicality, their relationship to history, the extent to which they challenge or endorse, subvert or affirm dominant forms of fashion—written by a critic he detests.
Communicating an attitude of complete indifference to one's personal appearance is only achievable through a process of self-reflexive critique bordering on the obsessive. Artists who are in reality oblivious to how they dress never achieve this effect.
Whereas a dealer must signal, in wardrobe, a sympathy to the tastes and tendencies of the collector class, an artist is under no obligation to endorse these. Rather, the task of the artist with regard to fashion is to interrogate the relationship between cost and value as it pertains to clothing, and, by analogy, to artworks.
An artist compensates for a limited wardrobe budget by making creative and entertaining clothing choices, much in the way that a dog compensates for a lack of speech through vigorous barking.
Artists are not only permitted but are in fact required to be underdressed at formal institutional functions. But egregious slovenliness without regard to context is a childish ploy, easily seen through.
An artist may dress like a member of the proletariat, but shouldn't imagine he's fooling anyone.
The affluent artist may make a gesture of class solidarity by dressing poorly. She is advised to keep in mind that, at an art opening, the best way to spot an heiress is to look for a destitute schizophrenic. Middle-class or working-class artists, the destitute, and the schizophrenic can use this principle to their social advantage.
The extension of fashion into the violation of norms of personal hygiene and basic grooming constitutes the final arena for radicalism in artists' fashion. Brave, fragrant souls! You will be admired from a distance.

Text by Roger White
Source: n+1 Journal, July 2009

Displaying the narcissism

With Nudie's encouregement, Lefty Frizzell adapted nicely to Western fringe. He appears to admire the look himself. Collection of Michael Ochs Archives, Venice.

Magnanimous

Scene from the Magnanimous Cuckold's play, produced by meierkhold, Moscow, 1922. the actors are wearing costumes designed by Popova and utilizing the actus apparatus she designed.

Mobutu Style

Meeting in the Oval Office between Nixon and President Mobutu Sese Seku of Zaire, 1973

Cowboy

Duane Hanson, Cowboy
1984/89 detail

Fashion with Wallpaper

Laure Albin-Guillot, 30's