MMM and Beauty
- Vanessa Beecroft
Beauty comes with the threat of its end - the tacit knowledge that it won’t last forever. We have a problem with this, and we get caught, in the illusion of never-ending beauty.
MM is candid about beauty. Its beauty comes with faults, burns, rips, memories of the past, dreams, tragedy. This beauty is surreal, asymmetrical, has no gender, no status. It is not sexist, is not luxury, is not money, is not class. It’s white, it’s black, and it’s a “Replica,” not a false interpretation.
When we own MM, we attach something that looks as if it has already undergone life and lost those elements tat induce the illusion of the everlasting. This garment is conceptually permanent because its temporary quality is part of its look. It is a picture of life after the act, even before it happened. What moves me is that this fear, or burn, or misfit feels unique, as if it were custom-made for me.
I own a pink MMM skirt that is beautifully made and is scorched on the bottom, which ensures that it cannot be flawed. The skirt also defies convention: a madame would never wear a dress of her own that is ripped. In Southern Sudan, people wear clothes that are “formal” (that charities provide.) These clothes endure a lot, and the Sudanese wear them until they fall apart. Margiela dresses the first-world with first-world quality, but third-world mentality.
Some MMM pieces embody the worst fears a person could have about vulnerability. Like everything we are afraid to lose, MMM clothes are vulnerable. Yet, because they appear as if they have already been violated, the fear that we might destroy or lose them is exorcized.
“Replicas” are a reminder that the beauty of the past is permanent. This beauty is as valid today as it was before. It is not created by constant change or a quest of newness but by recontextualizing classic elements in our time.
Margiela’s idea of beauty is not aprioristic or ideal. It does not depend on the individual who made the clothing or on the mystification of a model (the models’ faces are often covered). The work is done by a team that re-forms classic pieces, or deconstructs new garments, restricting them with a revolutionary point of view.
When you wear MMM, you become part of a resistance to the vulgarization of costume, the branding, the opulence, the ignorance of the new rich. MMM avoids celebration, buckles, gold and logos but conveys humor, substance, new ideas, abstraction, social provocation, happiness and beauty.
By referring to classic bourgeois clothes that are altered, turned inside out or upside down, MMM forbids the reification of ideals by embedding them in their ghosts. The ghost is our grandmother’s closet. But once we wear it ripped, out of size, or out of gender, we give these faults meaning that create a fundament for the new. It allows u tot connect to our roots without being conservative.
True beauty is bare. It does not create false promises of eternity but shows us that it is ephemeral. We fall in love with its imperfections and fragility, realizing that beauty is the experience of the beautiful and not an opaque object. When beauty is true and not perfect or ideal, it can be anything and last forever.
Scanned from Maison Martin Margiela, PARIS. First published by Rizzoli International Publications Inc.
(Source: t-e-l-e-p-a-t-h-y)
"If there is a God, He will have to beg my forgiveness."
(Source: notclarissa, via ancen)
