After the spring-summer 1999 retrospective, Martin Margiela decided to take a different direction. The first collection for the year 2000 studies new proportions: the clothes are oversized, size XXXXL. The enlargement has been present in the designer's collections since spring-summer 1990, with the men's marcel in particular enlarged to 200%, worn as a dress or rolled up in a skirt. The work on the scale of the garment continues with Barbie's wardrobe which, from autumn-winter 1994-1995, is adapted to human size.
For this collection, men's clothing - t-shirt, shirt, jumper, jacket, tuxedo jacket, trench coat, jacket -, of normal size, are enlarged to 200%, the equivalent of an Italian size 74. They design the new collection, available in several standard materials and colours. These enlarged men's clothes are industrially produced.
In the twentieth century, the extreme enlargement of the garment was a gamble that some people, even Martin Margiela, were afraid to take, whereas oversize was a notion absent from the catwalks. While some newspapers, including Le Figaro, see the designer's enlargements as "an idea as old as fashion", others, such as The Fashion, later point out that, "for spring-summer 2000, Martin Margiela's oversize collection shocked the public as if it were an incendiary bomb. The clothes were so gigantic that they contradicted the slim, body-hugging silhouette of the time in a disconcerting way. »
The spring-summer 2000 collection, later called Oversize, was the starting point for a new period in Martin Margiela's work. Women will follow him, and the collection will be a commercial success. The expansion concept is so dense that the designer will develop it over five collections until spring-summer 2002.
Martin Margiela
