This season, Maison Margiela’s MM6 took their show to east London, with a SS16 offering that put the focus on the creative community that surrounds the label. Disregarding gender to put boys in sparkly silver sequins and pink knits, the collection was a nod to the spirit of youth, and a tribute to the merging of high and low, old and new, the recognisable and the unfamiliar. Excitingly, MM6 have also joined Instagram – and they took over the Dazed account to celebrate. Here are three things you need to know about the show.
THE STREET CAST MODELS STOLE THE SHOW
With various artists, Instagram stars and even designers taking to the runways, SS16 is shaping up to be the season of the amateur model (or ‘nodel’). Although familiar agency-repped faces were in attendance at MM6 – including LC:M breakout Sol Goss and catwalk favourite Mona Matsuoka – it was the nodels (and their rainbow hair) that stole the show. Featuring the likes of CSM graduate fashion designer Matty Bovan and DJ John Quinton, they took to the runway with tattoos and mullets dyed neon green, a subtle rebellion against often the homogeneity of fashion’s runways.
IT REVAMPED SOME OLD CLASSICS
True to the brand’s deconstruct-reconstruct heritage, the collection reimagined some nostalgic favourites into new forms, breathing life into items that have, of late, fallen from fashion glory. Take the humble bum bag, which came covered in glittering red sequins and transformed into a spangled (and practical) boob tube. Then there were those Camden Market worthy wolf, eagle and moon t-shirts, turned into bodysuits and bikini tops and paired with sequin opera gloves or thigh high socks. Even tambourines found their way into the collection, forming choker necklaces.
THE PLASTIC WAS FANTASTIC
The material was a defining element of the collection, as over the shoulder bags came complete with a plastic pocket made from thick vinyl that hung outside, exposing its contents to the world (think festival essentials: tampons, condoms and toothbrushes). Elsewhere, a thinner version of the material cropped up as billowing shirts that felt like a retort to those fashion detractors who like to remark that anything a tiny bit avant garde looks like a bin bag. Elsewhere festival style rain poncho was sported by a boy in an acid yellow wig.
