There was an air of decadence and mystery at the Maison Margiela autumn/winter show in Paris on Friday, the label’s first menswear collection since John Galliano was installed as creative director.
Invitations had the words “call me” scrawled in messy handwriting on the back, like an end-of-night promise. The venue, 19th-century ballroom Salle Wagram, was filled with smoke and dimly lit in red, evoking an upmarket knocking shop. Fittingly, in the 1800s, it was the site of debauched parties thrown by bohemian French aristocracy. But on this occasion, the guests wondered, who was the host? Before the show, it remained unclear whether Galliano himself was actually responsible for the menswear collection that was about to be presented.
Galliano is currently being rehabilitated in the fashion world, four years after a drunken, antisemitic rant led to him being fired from Dior. Earlier this month, the 54-year-old designer presented his first couture womenswear collection for Margiela in front of an audience of powerful friends (Anna Wintour, Kate Moss) and significant new ones (Rabbi Barry Marcus of London’s Central synagogue). Though notes distributed at the show were typically enigmatic, the press office told the Guardian that this collection had been created by Margiela’s in-house designers without Galliano’s involvement, with the designer’s full reign beginning with womenswear in March.
Still, the rumour mill turned. Would a notorious workaholic such as Galliano really be able to take a back seat? The styling of the show certainly suggested the team had been influenced, consciously or not, by the brand’s new figurehead. Clothes were glitzy and louche, with models wearing leather macintoshes, cuban heels and glittery Lurex jumpers. There was an explicit 1970s theme, an unusual move for Margiela, a house that does not usually refer to specific periods in its design. There were plenty of Margiela tropes also on show, too: edges were unravelled, hems were unfinished and models’ hands were enigmatically dipped in paint. At the end, no one took a bow and, unusually, the backstage area was closed to the press. Was Galliano even in the building? Either way, his ears will have been burning.
How to break the internet during men’s fashion week? Naked penises on the runway should do it.
On Thursday, the American designer Rick Owens sent models down the catwalk in peep-hole outfits that subtly showed their genitals. The usually unshockable fashion crowd – inured to the sight of bare bottoms and nipples before lunch – were surprised and perplexed; some of the front row were unsure of what they had seen even as they left the venue.
As fashion stunts go, this was quite something. It was, as one editor cheekily described it, a “grower”. Unlike so many Instagram-friendly moments, painstakingly orchestrated on the catwalk but often swiftly forgotten after receiving a few likes, this one seemed designed to last.
It wasn’t until the evening that gossip filtered through, news broke and the designer’s name was trending on Twitter, with #dickowens becoming an Instagram hashtag. Even those who have been rolling their eyes at the fuss, arguing that there is nothing inherently shocking about male body parts, still found themselves deep in the debate.
But what did it mean? According to Rick Owens’ official announcement, the show was about “compression” and “pressure built-up in silent vessels filled with energy” and “the strain of preserving reason under extreme pressure”. The collection also “fetishises the nautical peacoat and cable-knit sweater”, apparently – a line some editors reacted to by asking: “Wow – were there peacoats? I didn’t notice.”
• The standfirst on this article was amended on 27 January 2015 to better reflect the contents of the story.
