In a rapidly changing world, and with fashion shows returning to normal, John Galliano has decided to stage a multi-disciplinary film to showcase Maison Margiela’s Artisanal 2022 Collection. Staged in the underground theatre at Palais de Chaillot, Cinema Inferno is an assemblage piece created with its haute couture collection. The film follows a story that Galliano carefully crafted and brought to life in a theatre performance in collaboration with Imitating the Dog, the British theatre company.
The performance follows a dramatic love story of Count and Hen, who are on the run and wounded from a gun fight. The two lovers end up in the Arizona desert and are engulfed by a sandstorm. The film is told through the grammar of haute couture and explores representations of the patriarchal abuse of power, parent, legal, educational, religious, and medical. It is a critique of the current traumas humans face. These representations are told through fabric and cutting techniques developed by Margiela’s Artisanal atelier. Haute Couture silhouettes are impregnated with the language of surgical scrubs, while sorbet-coloured prom expressions appear to be slashed.
Margiela also released its latest motif, Sandstorming, which gives the impression of a sandstorm in a garment or accessory through fully engineered fabric weaves, in needle-punching, flocking, or beading. Galliano also used his Poverino technique, where garments are spliced from different components to merge into one piece. This is achieved by cutting away the layers to reveal the structure of the composition. The result is cultish, horror-inspired looks.
Galliano featured vintage collectables in the collection by repurposing 20th-century women’s shoes. Created by the House’s Recicla line, the shoes are resized and morphed into entirely new manifestations, featuring selected vintage pieces from Galliano’s archives. The shoes were worn beside new Tabi pumps reimagined with a pointed toe in ruby crystal, while Tabi cowboy boots are featured in tan leather and covered in crystal. Brooches come in crystal and the form of a sheriff star badge, cats, hats, and Pierrots. Accessories include sunglasses that are created in collaboration with Gentle Monster.
The show’s format was new and unique, where innovation reign from the design techniques to the film method. It was Galliano rethinking not only the fashion show but techniques and designs in his collection. Watch the showcase below:
