How Designers John Galliano and Tomo Koizumi Gloriously Transformed Each Other’s Work

[man greets in French]

[Man] Hello.

[Man] Hi. How are you? How are you? Good?

Has she arrived?

Yes, she arrived.

Yes?

In a bus.

Oh my god, Gypsy.

It was heaven the day it arrived,

look number four.

I thought there d been a mistake

cause it arrived in another house.

[Man] I think it s just the--

Is that a mistake?

[Man] No, it s just the bag.

Well, Tomo s got a great sense of humor.

[laughs]

[playful instrumental music]

It was actually a really magical day.

It was like God s light was shining through

and then this beautiful wedding dress

was presented to myself and Gypsy.

And it was at that point I felt a huge responsibility,

and, yeah, I thought, you know,

how can we upcycle, you know, a dress?

The greatest,

one of the greatest days of your life,

that you would wear this so,

I felt happier with recycling.

For the 2021 Forces of Fashion edition,

Madam Wintour has had that this genius idea,

inspired by upcycling and recycling,

that designers would offer each other a dress

where we could recycle, upcycle.

It was decided that we would have look number four

from Tomo Koizumi,

which is a fabulous wedding dress

with ruched tulle in a decorative Proust whites.

And we would send Rihanna s toile from Met 2018,

with carte blanche.

[woman giggling]

So, [laughs]

we need to put our thinking hats on

on what magic we could create with this fantastic piece.

I think at the time,

I m still very seriously into this concept

of inverted snobbery.

So, the idea that you could take a wedding dress,

decorticate it,

to reknit

into an outsize jumper.

The idea that these memories,

these generational memories,

could be worn.

[scissors snip]

[train chugging]

[Tomo speaking in Japanese]

[woman cheering]

[laughs]

[Tomo speaking in Japanese]

[woman speaks in Japanese]

[Tomo speaking in Japanese]

[woman giggles]

[Tomo speaking in Japanese]

[seams ripping] [scissors snip]

[train rumbles]

It was almost like, old school couture in reverse.

So, we unpicked everything.

Every frill meticulously, every frill was magicked.

Every frill was taken apart and then color-coded into balls,

almost like balls of knitwear.

[fabric rips]

[sewing machine whirs]

[Tomo speaking in Japanese]

I ll start with creating a volume in tarlatan,

which is a slightly stiffer, but lightweight canvas,

to help us decide on volume.

And really depending on what fabric

we re going to make the final design in,

whether it s tweed, or silk,

or in this case, knitted,

we will then do half a proto, just to see that that volume

is translating well in the different mediums.

[scissors snip]

[Tomo speaking in Japanese]

[pins rattle]

[scissors snip]

[Tomo speaking in Japanese]

[fabric rips]

Time to unstitch the fabric strips,

two days, five people,

more or less 80 hours.

Time to make the balls, three days, five people,

more or less, in time, 120 hours,

time to make the swatch, three days, one person,

more or less 24 hours,

time to knit the jumper, 11 days, one person,

more or less 90 hours.

[fabric rustles]

[phone chimes]

Hi, nice to meet you.

I m Tomo, nice to meet you, John.

Ah, the feeling s mutual,

wonderful to meet you too, Tomo, I m John.

I wish my dogs were here, Gypsy and Coco,

cause when your dress arrived, they went mental.

They went mental.

I have two little dogs and when they saw the frilly dress,

they loved it.

Loved it.

I came running up the stairs

cause I heard it was coming,

look number four, look number four.

And we were all here, Raphael and the atelier.

And it was so beautiful,

what we opened the box

and there was this beautiful dégradé color white dress

with a mead-like frilling, and oh, it s gorgeous.

And the dégradé blue.

And we immediately put it on our fittings muse,

and then we took pictures.

And then we danced around it a bit.

And then we started a dialogue with the team

to see what we could do,

but it felt like you were in the room,

which is quite magical.

And, of course, being a Maison Margiela,

I had to deconstruct the dress, Tomo.

[yells quietly]

Okay?

Gently.

[laughs]

Which involved

taking every little frill

off the dress.

So, some serious deconstruction started.

I love the idea of creating something other,

but with the spirit of what was there,

our ethics, recycling, you know,

one of our lines is called Recicla.

All the things that we believed in, so it s truly authentic,

the relationship we had with the original dress,

it was really part of the family and genderless too, Tomo.

[Tomo hums]

Boys and girls can wear this one.

[Tomo laughs]

Yes.

It sounds so fun, yes, sounds exciting.

Yeah. It has been a fun experience, I hope you like it.

I haven t had the chance to do it

with other designers clothes,

and John s work so, like,

I was so nervous,

but I really enjoy cut and sew everything.

The only way to learn though, isn t it, Tomo?

Through discovering, taking things apart,

I mean, it s the biggest teacher

that one could have. Yeah.

At the end of it, it s only surplus,

most couturiers go through that,

I think, yeah.

Yeah, I was really enjoyed to do it,

when I saw the dress first time,

it was toile, it s all white.

So I thought, like, I would paint it,

I would use it as a canvas.

Yeah,

so I used all white colors

for transformation first.

Then, it s still on the process,

then I m gonna paint the look.

So, yeah, the last part,

painting is gonna be really fun and joyful to us.

One of the early toiles, but not just in toile fabric,

it was already cut in a fabric

that simulated the eventual fabric,

we would use like a cloqué,

and it was one of the early toiles for Rihanna

and her appearance at the Met.

We always keep a toile for the history books, if you like,

except for this one occasion,

where we just thought the project was so genius

that we would do this collaboration.

Tomo, it was really fab to meet you.

I really mean that, it was great.

I hope I can meet you in person someday soon.

Definitely definitely, we will, we will.

Yeah, please. Bye.

Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

[phone chimes]

[man hums softly]

[uplifting instrumental music]

Kind of imagined a couple by the moonlight,

sharing their stories of beautiful times

they d had together.

And those memories smoothing their troubled souls.

That idea really appealed to me,

that the idea of the memory,

that you d be wearing this really cool, outside knitwear,

but it had all the memories of yesteryear.

Touching, poetic.

[Tomo speaking in Japanese]

[uplifting instrumental music]