As the spring couture presentations in Paris conclude, the collection John Galliano designed for Maison Margiela that predated all of the other shows and took place in London on Monday, January 12, is still top of mind. The house called the women’s show Artisanal, but it had all the trappings of couture. Twenty-four looks were sent down the runway as Kate Moss, Jamie Hince, Manolo Blahnik, Christopher Bailey, Alber Elbaz, and a host of editors looked on. Then, the toiles used to make the looks were shown, riffing on the house’s propensity for self-referential clothing (remember the spring 2011 ready-to-wear collection with flat sweaters and jackets that paraded down the runway and looked as if they were folded for travel even as models wore them? Or the exaggerated shoulders? Or pants that seemed to hover in front of the models’ legs?). It was a smart meta move to show the construction techniques and fill the runway with canvas and white, because much of the collection displayed the more-is-more aesthetic Galliano perfected over the years rather than Martin Margiela era austerity.

The house released show notes stating that designer, who has been absent from the runways for three years following his dismissal from Dior, approached “tailoring, techniques, craftsmanship like a new explorer.” But even as he was making new discoveries, Galliano exposed Margiela fans to the Cabinet de Curiosités in his mind—the scraps of everyday life were literally woven into dresses. It’ll take a certain woman to pull off these looks (the late San Francisco doyenne Dodie Rosekrans, herself a Galliano customer, would have loved it). But there were a few looks for fervent Margiela devotees shown toward the end of the collection: a monastic red coast and two column gowns. They almost seemed tossed off, an afterthought to prove that Galliano can do minimalism, obviously. But Galliano is the sort of talent who can get away with such a thing.

By Elizabeth Varnell

Pictured: A look from the Maison Margiela spring 2015 Artisanal collection designed by John Galliano.
Photo Courtesy of Maison Margiela

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