As the great realignment continues to ripple through studios all over Europe, MM6 offered up a fall Avant Première collection that felt like a reassuring placeholder. At first glance, it appeared stacked with familiar, everyday classics. But upon closer inspection, many pieces nudged the viewer to reconsider assumptions. This being MM6, straight-up normalcy is just a cover, and as for the shopworn “quiet luxury,” during a showroom visit someone floated “anti-loud” as this season’s alt.
For men, “seemingly normal” meant that a shirt in a rich sage green, paired with a gray wool tie and trousers, was actually several degrees sexier in person than your average button-down because it was cut from butter-soft faux leather. Other sleights of hand included cutting suiting material like 501s, giving a fleece tailored sleeves, or revisiting campus favorites—tweed jackets had frayed elbow patches, a wool overcoat sported a tonal crest, and a faux leather vest came jazzed up with colorful printed patches.
Varsity flourishes cropped up on women’s wear, for example in “Margiela 6” lettering on a khaki knit dress with a frayed hem and feminine, fluted sleeves. But the headline here was slouch, with peekaboo armholes, lowered waistlines, blouse-y off-the-shoulder tops, drop-crotch jeans and a wide belt slung at the hips on a white double-breasted trench. A sleeveless dress with a tweed tank bodice over a satiny skirt looked plenty commercial; ditto the bombers or trucker jackets paired with shoulder-high gloves and bottle-cap earrings or other found-object jewels. Peeking out from under a swingy black coat, white jeans embellished with doodles begged a closer look.
That’s by design: having inaugurated a new store on Via della Spiga last September, MM6 seems to be making a case for tearing eyes away from screens and getting back into the store. When this lineup lands, fans will find new iterations of the Bauletto bag that debuted on the runway for spring, now in yellow (mini), blue (medium), or black, plus dino or ring charms to dress them up. Other statements included the Japanese bag with a tubular brass handle stamped with the house’s numeric logo, a hybrid shoe in shiny black spazzolato from the ongoing Salomon collaboration, and as-yet nameless high-heeled moccasin mules that will likely hit home with the brand’s base.
