“Guests were crying in their chairs, real tears.” Margiela show rocks Paris Fashion Week

“The last fashion show of the Paris haute couture season just ended and here I am sitting in my hotel room, eating potatoes and still in shock from Margiela’s fashion fantasy,” writes American journalist Derek Blasberg on Instagram. And continue. “The best of Galliano. The pomp, the circumstances, the drama, the people crying in their seats. Real, real tears. Lace, silhouettes, hand stitched raindrops flow, drama“. In turn, journalist Cleman Larre from the magazine Stylist In a post on Instagram, @stylenotcom, she confirmed that she “cried watching the show because that’s what good fashion does to the mind.”

Such comments were found on hundreds of social networks after the presentation of John Galliano’s haute couture collection took place on the evening of January 25 under the Alexandre III bridge in Paris. The event between the fashion show and artistic events did not leave its audience indifferent. “I shed a few tears for this gorgeous collection that tells the story of John Galliano’s classic fashion show style,” said one X netizen. And at the end.

On the Instagram pages of people invited to participate in the parade, reactions can be heard directly in the comments or captions of the published videos. “Speechless,” “I could cry, it’s so beautiful,” they express. “That’s how much people loved it. Applause and shouts for five minutes,” wrote the editor-in-chief of the magazine Luigi Vitali in the story. Dust. In the video attached to the text, we notice a really loud applause. Luigi Vitali adds that “having this experience was transformative” and says in the publication that this parade was “probably the most incredible I have ever seen.”

“Fearful and Fabulous”

To evoke so much emotion, Maison Margiela’s artistic director saw the big picture. The hour delay is quickly forgiven when artist Lucky Love opens the show. After the screening of a black and white short film that sets the mood, the star model of the house, Leon Dame, appears. To the tune of singer Adele and dressed in suit pants, she struts across a wooden podium, her waist cinched in a corset and her head covered by a beret. Her steamy gait and enigmatic gaze set the tone for the collection. “The make-up, the ‘face covers’, the strange presence of a doll with broken fingers…it was so scary it was fabulous,” one user shared on X.

“We want to watch it several times to uncover its mysteries.”

“Galliano has the power to turn our hearts. Thought, history, poetry, the human condition travel beyond fashion,” explains one of the Internet users in a video published by journalist Sophie Fontanelle on Instagram. And surpass. “Fashion is a fantasy. It’s a phantasmagoric, unreal parade that you want to watch several times to discover its mysteries.” After a busy week of haute couture, John Galliano offered a break here. A moment where we take time to think. Not only the rooms, but also the decor, the approach of the models, the atmosphere, the direct reactions of the guests. “You don’t just have to see the clothes, you have to express them through models and collections to create an iconic moment,” elaborates @boymolish on X.

The theatrical production is reminiscent of fashions of the past, like Alexander McQueen’s fashion shows that ended in fire or a hologram of Kate Moss. At a time when couture promotes sobriety as modernity, Margiela’s presentation goes back to basics. Here, dandies and bewildered girls emerge from the catacombs and haunt the dark streets of Paris. “This collection was similar to the collections of the 1990s and 2000s, it makes me so nostalgic. Honestly breathtaking,” we can read in X.

Herein lies perhaps the key to this “show of shows” enigma, John Galliano’s unique style statement. Like the collections the British designer designed when he arrived at Dior in 1997, or the backlash after his famous spring-summer 2006, when he gave carte blanche to all body types. If there is still an element of mystery, Internet users are almost unanimous.