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Artisanal Martin Margiela Lingerie & Work On Paper Boxed White Set 1998

$55,000

£41,280.79

€48,169.37

CA$77,704.05

A$77,904.16

CHF 45,144.90

MX$951,927.63

NOK 523,165.21

SEK 534,239.35

DKK 360,052.44

About the Item

As conceptual art while he transitioned to French luxury house Hermes Creative Director in 1998, Belgian Martin Margiela--whose creations today debut in the setting of a contemporary-art gallery priced at upwards of EU$150,000--designed this rare lingerie-cum-jewelry and its instructional ink print. Conceived by arguably the most culturally influential fashion designer since Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, it is part of a limited-edition-of-two white-boxed set that includes the couture Maison Martin Margiela "Artisanal Line 0" body harness in its founder's signature color white. The same lingerie--one white and the other black--starred in a film made by Margiela among the five that he screened in Paris during Fall Fashion Week to present his Spring/Summer 1998 "Flat Collection" at the Conciergerie. In that film titled "4", which begins with a view of the iconic topless Tabis, the hands of Margiela's white-labcoat-clad assistants enter the frame (see our photos) to manipulate different garments on a model, who initially wears the lingerie as body jewelry over bare skin. The harness then restructures multiple types of clothing, while they are individually wrapped inward around the straps to appear as if ruched. In the film, a simple dark lightweight-fabric collared coat, a white collared button-down shirt, and a dark button-down thin-knit cardigan--all with the "displaced neckline" or "displaced shoulder" of that collection's flat-hanging clothes--became new functional shapes that each feature a collarless plunging v-neckline, whereby the harness is hidden within the folded fabric like lingerie. Both black limited-edition versions of the lingerie are in museum collections. In Martin Margiela's home-country, the ModeMuseum (MoMu) archived its collected piece as OBJ7660. In the 2018 Parisian retrospective exhibition at Musee de la Mode/Palais Galleria when its artistic director was Martin Margiela (working with Curator Alexandre Samson), one of the black lingerie/jewelry was featured on a mannequin and collected the same year by the Vogue Paris Foundation. Other conceptual jewelry designs from this same 1998 limited-edition collection were acquired by TheMet museum in Manhattan. Not restricted by the use and/or function of clothing, the small uncreased print--which is on a card that can be removed from the interior-box bottom that it loosely spans--shows the buyer how to endlessly restyle bodices using the elastic undergarment for their own vintage clothing. This is arguably the best example of Martin Margelia's anti-fashion upcycling that he introduced beginning in 1989 to challenge social and fashion-industry norms. The minimal object echos the revolutionary anti-art of a century ago by rule-breaking Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp. Margiela's transformative fashion tool seems to reinvent an iconic work by the latter artist, Venus Restored, which is a reproduction of a classical nude female sculpture that he erotically bound in rope (see our snap from a Man Ray exhibition). Margiela's tradition-shattering lingerie is more than a unique wearable object with the power to make people think differently--its function provokes action so that different kinds of vintage clothing can be temporarily reconstructed as if a new garment. What makes the print so special and worthy of framing for display is that, without words, three numbered images on a single white card encapsulate the before-its-time fashion manifesto of Martin Margiela to recycle fashion in remarkable new wearable ways, such as harnessed by this lingerie. According to The New York Times in its 2021 feature-story that reflected on his radical fashion design and delved into his crossover art, Margiela "changed how we dressed in the 1990s", while his art embodies "the visionary man he has always been." At a turning-point shortly after Margiela designed this couture set in 1997, his personal manifesto became more difficult to accomplish in his fashion career as the new leader of France's historic Hermes, for which his first womenswear collection was presented for Autumn/Winter 1998. Frustrated by the limitations of the industrialized luxury trade and conglomerate conflicts with his closely guarded privacy, the famously "invisible" designer pre-maturely retired from the fashion industry in 2009 to independently build on his clever artistry in other mediums. Margiela continues to demonstrate what he often told his fashion teams: "The less you have, the more creative you are as a designer." This minimal finely-crafted lingerie without size or gender restriction--composed of adjustable "polya-elasthanne" straps with a clear anti-slip strip on the underside and three silver-plated metal double-rings--can be worn either as a concealed structural undergarment or as a visible jewelry-like body harness in appreciation of its meaning as a foundation for fashion recycling. While the initial Maison Martin Margiela ready-to-wear brand tag until the late 1990s was a distinct corner-sewn unbranded white label accompanied by tags for origin and materials/care, the couture version for this lingerie is a single tiny white unbranded tag stitched in a line near the end of the waist strap, noting in English, "Made In France," with succinct material/care identification. The set's white unbranded box and its white black-typed couture-identification sticker complete the "invisible brand" aesthetic. We interpret the black-type codes on the aged box-sticker: Summer 1998 Haute Couture; white structural-elastic garment; Artisanal Line 0 edition of two; one size only. The print, lingerie and box are in very good condition with only one mark on the rear edge of the exterior box-lid. Although initially tried on by the sole owner to realize a restructured shirt, the lingerie body-harness was never worn. It was collected in Belgium at the Brussels boutique where Martin Margiela initially sold his brand with his founding business-partner Jenny Meirens since 1988. Prior, Margiela worked for several years as a fashion-design assistant to Parisian Jean Paul Gaultier. Both designers have since received independent museum retrospectives internationally--from Paris' Grand Palais and Musee Palais Galliera (The City of Paris Fashion Museum) to NYC's The Brooklyn Museum and Antwerp's MoMu. Notably, his first museum exhibition of garments was at Museum Boijmans Van Beuninggen in Rotterdam in 1997 when he produced this couture boxed set.

Designer:
Martin Margiella
Brand:
Maison Martin Margiela
Dimensions:
Marked Size: TU one size only (EU)
Place of Origin:
France
Period:
1990-1999
Material Notes:
mixed media art as boxed limited-edition-of-two print and couture structural garment for anti-fashion upcycling
Condition:
Wear consistent with age and use.
Seller Location:
Chicago, IL
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU3244218126742

Shop All Maison Martin Margiela

Maison Martin Margiela

Belgian designer Martin Margiela (b. 1957) — whose life, career, and designs for handbags, clothing and shoes have become cult-collector obsessions — pushed those who attended his shows outside their comfort zones. In the years following the 1988 debut of Maison Martin Margiela, he toyed with creative and aesthetic paradoxes that persist in fashion today.

Consider the Spring/Summer 2001 shirt patchworked from vintage clothing labels, or his famous corset dresses made from tailoring dummies, from his Fall/Winter 1997 line. Or his oversize collection for Fall/Winter 2000. In 1992, Margiela told Dépêche Mode magazine, “My clothes appeal to women of a certain mindset rather than of a specific age or physique.”

Born in Genk, Belgium, in 1957, Margiela knew he wanted to be a fashion designer after catching glimpses of Parisian fashion on TV as a child. Although his parents discouraged this career choice as an oddly funny aspiration, Margiela enrolled in the fashion program of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. There, he befriended and graduated a year ahead of the Antwerp Six — the acclaimed group of Belgian fashion designers comprising Dries Van Noten, Walter Van Beirendonck, Ann Demeulemeester, Marina Yee, Dirk Bikkembergs and Dirk Van Saene.

Like many of his contemporaries in the 1980s, Margiela understood Paris fashion but felt a deep resonance with the deconstructed beauty espoused by Japanese designers Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo, of Comme des Garçons. Margiela’s fascination with Japan influenced many of his earliest collections and designs, from a dress pieced together from broken plates to his iconic Tabi boots, inspired by the split-toe Japanese worker’s shoe, which dates back to the 15th century.

Margiela decided to launch his own line while working for renowned Paris designer Jean Paul Gaultier. With Belgian designer Jenny Meirens, Margiela established Maison Martin Margiela in the French capital in 1988.

Margiela’s debut show was nothing short of spectacular. Set in a packed Café de la Gare in the still-seedy Marais district, it was also scandalous to the Parisian fashion set of the time. The designer tore up the conventions of contemporary couture presentations, most notably having his models, plucked from the streets and wearing ink-blotted Tabis, wend their way through the crowd.

The show redefined the concept of the runway in a way that would later inspire such designers as Alexander McQueen and Demna Gvasalia.

While the notoriously private designer retired from fashion in 2009, for many Maison Martin Margiela collectors, his pieces capture the irreverence of the postwar, post-punk late 1980s and ’90s. Katy Rodriguez, cofounder of the cult vintage fashion shop Resurrection, is among those who felt a connection to Margiela’s clothing in the subliminal challenges it posed to the time’s beauty norms.

“Growing up in San Francisco and coming out of the end of punk rock, not wanting to be objectified, not wanting to be seen as a sexual object, not wanting your value to be just because you’re pretty — all those clothes played into all of that,” she says. “It really was a reflection of the kind of world the young people I knew at the time wanted to live in.”

John Galliano was named creative director at the house in 2014 and it rebranded as Maison Margiela in 2015.

Find vintage Maison Martin Margiela boots, evening dresses, jackets and more on 1stDibs.

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