The MM6 show venue today was a carpeted, hushed space bathed in soft light; it felt strangely comforting, and almost too elegant for what one usually expects from the label’s radical edge. Yet talking backstage with the design collective’s spokesperson, it all made sense, as moodboard images referenced looks from Martin Margiela’s Hermès years (1997 to 2003). The calm, the purity, the minimalistic chic of those collections (ante litteram no-logo quiet luxury at its most refined) would’ve been perfectly framed by today’s counterintuitive salon-like atmosphere.
MM6 certainly won’t go couture anytime soon, yet an elevated feel was clearly perceptible throughout its fall repertoire. The plunging neckline of an elongated waistcoat/tunic was a nod to the vareuse, the blouse with a deep V-neck Margiela created for Hermès; looking at the codes he established for the French house helped the design team introduce “a classy feel, and to look dressy with minimal effort,” they said. Case in point were the abstract rectangular modules suspended from horizontal shoulder pads and sharp-raised shoulder lines that shape-shifted into the elongated or fitted silhouettes of tops, ultra-mini dresses, and tailored skirt suits.
The rectangular shape also recalled that of the pillowcases of the hotel bedrooms the design team usually stays in during its work trips to Italy, printed with incongruous motifs reprised on sweaters and tops. “We have spent so much time in those bedrooms in Veneto, so it felt right to let our life creep into what we create,” they said, adding that clothing should feel lived in, real, true and loved: “There’s no need for preposterous narratives.” There was an undertone of abstract softness in the collection, as if the house codes were opening up to an astute sense of sexy and to odd elegance. Reality is never a banal, vapid affair seen through the clever lenses of the MM6 design team.
