Do you think there are so many ways to rework a wardrobe staple? At MM6 Maison Margiela, the resort collection was about looking at the clothes from a different angle: 90 degrees to be precise.
Slip dresses were turned sideways, jackets had a slit in the back to become off-the-shoulder blouses and dresses, and jeans and denim skirts ended up with feathers at the top and a back pocket at the front.
While these were clever distortions, MM6's pragmatic approach remained. The clothes were even more elegant because many of them could be worn in the so-called normal way, by unbuttoning a discreet white button.
When it came to menswear staples, the novelty was having two different pieces on the front and back. Attractive hybrids included a sleek camel Crombie coat fused with a beige trench coat, or a nylon bomber jacket with a denim jacket.
Throughout, details hinted at works in progress, with a distorted checkered pattern as if caught mid-twist on a blouse, a white blouse cinched at the waist with duct tape, and the internal construction of a jacket exposed thanks to a transparent back.
Lightly distilled nods to Margiela's vernacular and previous MM6 designs, with a palm tree print “rescued from a long-forgotten CD-ROM” according to the collection notes, a 2000s slipcover revisited in leather or a leather necklace shaped like a keychain.
They played with the idea that a classic is something you can make work, one way or another.
