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https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2611-0563/11086
ZoneModa Journal. Vol.10 n.1 (2020)
ISSN 2611-0563
Deconstruction in Fashion as a Path Toward
New Beauty Standards: The Maison Margiela Case
Maria Skivko*
Published: July 29, 2020
Abstract
As an approach for redening relations between text and its meaning, the idea of deconstruction ap-
peared in the works of philosopher Jacques Derrida. This philosophical concept received the reec-
tion in the modern architecture: it provokes a denial of stereotypes about the building’s forms and
functions, a conict of the architectural elements’ dislocation. Some fashion designers use a decon-
struction method to destroy fashion standards and fashion stereotypes. Particularly, Belgian designer
Martin Margiela questions the traditional understanding of fashion and fashion beauty and rethinks
the relations between fashion forms, functions, and ideology constructed by clothing.
This paper provides an analysis of the deconstructionist fashion techniques in the case of Maison
Margiela fashion house. By performing the conicting nature of fashion garments, Margiela con-
structs the concept of universal, basic clothes but, at the same time, very anonymous, free of labels,
tags, and social judgments. This fashion of deconstruction articulates today the next level of rela-
tionship between consumers and fashion garments that is not only about standardized functions but
expanded values and interpretations.
Keywords: Deconstruction; Deconstructivist Fashion; Beauty Standard; Maison Margiela; Fashion
Standard; Fashioned Body.
*Samara National Research University (Russian Federation); maria.skivko@gmail.com
Copyright © 2020 Maria Skivko
The text of this work is licensed under the Creative Commons BY License.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
39
Deconstruction in Fashion as a Path Toward New Beauty Standards ZMJ. Vol.10 n.1 (2020)
Introduction
What does beauty mean today? What is the relationship between beauty and fashioned bodies? And
how do fashion standards inuence the perception of clothing? The glamorous idea of dressing up to
look good has long determined the traditional understanding of the fashion phenomenon and, more
broadly, of beauty. But discerning the leading fashion attitude among the various designers and fashion
trends today can be a challenge. Some fashion designers are promoting and developing a new under-
standing of the relationship between fashion garments and fashioned bodies. Using a provocative ap-
proach, designers are questioning the unshrinking nature of fashion standards. This paper explores the
concept of deconstruction in fashion as a way to analyze the relationships between consumers and fash-
ion garments. The paper articulates this method by examining the case of the Maison Margiela fashion
brand.
Fashion designers, fashion inuencers, fashion media, and street style fashion all inform the present
understanding of fashion and beauty standards. However, fashion items usually tend to serve merely
as beautifying instruments to meet the needs of individuals. They express social status, personal taste,
cultural identity, gender stereotypes, or income. Thus, the question emerges as to whether fashion func-
tions for individual demands or the demands of society: If fashion articulates an individual approach
to fashion standards and fashion beauty, it confronts society’s collective and traditional ideas regard-
ing common standards and stereotypes. If fashion serves the interests of society, individuals have less
freedom for self-expression and must t in with the common pattern.
Deconstructivist fashion embodies the provocative model of postmodernist beauty: It challenges fe-
male silhouettes, erases the borders between female and male clothing, and creates timeless, universal
garments. Moreover, by dismantling fashion garments into parts and by shifting the focus from the util-
itarian function of fashion to the independent value of clothing, the deconstructivistfashion facilitates
a new vision of fashion garments. Japanese designers were the rst to take this independent approach,
which Belgian designers then developed further. By bringing about disorder in tailoring, constructing,
and performing fashion items, that approach destroys the traditional order in the fashion world.
Symbolically rooted in the philosophy of deconstruction and deconstructivist architecture, deconstruc-
tivist fashion emphasizes the context in which beauty does not necessarily consist of beautiful compo-
nents alone. This provocative and revolutionary approach to fashion challenges not only fashion de-
signers but also fashion followers by establishing new relationships between consumers and garments.
Furthermore, deconstructivist fashion is inclusive. All body proportions and shapes, all fashion beauty
standards, all fabrics and forms of tailoring clamor for signicance on the fashion scene. However, it is
important to question the fashion nature, provoke it, and create conict. Using the example of the Mai-
son Margiela brand, this paper describes three types of conict that determine the relationships between
consumers and fashion garments. First, the conict of function deconstructs the primary utilitarian pur-
pose of fashion clothing. Clothes receive a meaning in line with that of the dressed body. The body is
not simply covered in clothes but also communicates through fashion garments. Second, the conict of
forms explains the plurality of options for constructing a fashion garment. It applies dierent sewing
techniques and non-typical textiles to create fashion beauty. The body is not fashionably embellished
but separated from the garment to receive an independent meaning. Third, the conict of ideology
constructs an anonymous expression in fashion that is exempt from fashion stereotypes and prejudices.
The body acts independently and does not transmit standardized meanings and relations. Using the
example of the tabi boots’ success, this paper describes the relationships between modern consumers
and garments that are deconstructed in terms of form, function, and ideological message.
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Deconstruction in Fashion as a Path Toward New Beauty Standards ZMJ. Vol.10 n.1 (2020)
The philosophical background of deconstruction
Deconstruction is part of modern philosophy that regards the process of understanding as a breakdown
of stereotypes and the creation of a new context. Mainly, it emphasizes the stereotypical thinking that
provides standardized explanations and meanings for the context. Postmodern philosophy deconstructs
those stereotypes to determine the meanings of the text.
The notion of deconstruction rst appeared in the 1970s in the works of philosopher Jacques Derrida
to connect text to its meaning.1Criticizing logocentrism (i.e., the linguistic signier privileges over the
signied) for its focus only on the text itself as a meaningful construction, Derrida highlights the need
to deconstruct the text and split it into words for an analysis of the variety of hidden interpretations.
To better understand the meaning of a text, it is essential to review the stereotypes and include the new
context from the deconstruction process.
According to Derrida, this process consists of two main steps: rst, avoid binary oppositions of meaning
(e.g., good/bad, rational/irrational); second, question the existence of both ideas in the binary opposi-
tion. In other words, it is necessary to provoke a conict that leads to the deconstruction process; then,
it is essential to analyze the whole by examining the parts of the whole to nd contradictions. This idea
is critical in postmodernity because of the transformation of the relations between text, language, and
meaning. There is a dierence between destruction as annihilation and deconstruction as an analysis
of the parts to nd new interpretations. In the second type, it is essential to reconstruct the parts by
modifying the standard order and typical forms.
Deconstruction is a constant process of interpreting the text or the object; by questioning the nature
of major and minor, it involves contradictory meanings. The language of interpretation expresses the
power to dene hierarchies (i.e., what is signicant, what is not). Therefore, deconstruction in philos-
ophy calls into question the authority of language and its real nature by providing new interpretations
and representations.
Deconstructivism as a style in architecture
Postmodernist architecture expanded the philosophical concept. Since the 1980s, the visual complexity
of buildings — their fragmentation, “broken” lines, and absence of harmony with the urban environ-
ment — has characterized the work of postmodern architects. In response to modernist thinking and
as a protest against modern reality, deconstructivist architecture broke the traditional understanding of
buildings. Through improper forms, complex constructions, and sharp angles, it created a new vision
of the urban environment. The “Deconstructivist architecture” exhibition took place in 1988 in the
MoMA in New York City. By presenting the works of architects like Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid, and
Daniel Libeskind, it launched the deconstructivist narrative with a non-typical approach to architec-
ture.2
Similarly to text analysis, deconstructivist architecture provokes a denial of stereotypes about the build-
ing’s forms and functions. It often looks like chaos, expression, and disorder but symbolizes a search
for change, transformation, and new relationships between an individual and standardized thought.
Moreover, with the use of modern technologies, it is possible to implement and express innovative ideas
in construction and to incorporate new relationships with time and space through architecture. Fur-
thermore, deconstruction in architecture explains not a style but a method. It accelerates a conict of
distortion and dislocation in the architectural elements, which is required to produce a conict between
the perception and the vision of a building.
Another convincing idea in deconstructivist architecture oers a way to escape from the building’s func-
tionality. It is typical to observe and analyze the functional characteristics of construction, along with
1. Jacques Derrida and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Of grammatology (Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1997).
2. Philip Johnson and Mark Wigley, Deconstructivist architecture [Exhibition catalog] (N.Y.: Museum of Modern Art, 1988).
https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2611-0563/11086 41
Deconstruction in Fashion as a Path Toward New Beauty Standards ZMJ. Vol.10 n.1 (2020)
certain stereotypes. The postmodernist approach develops the concept of constructing a building free
of stereotypical prescriptions about its functionality, aesthetic, and equilibrium. Therefore, deconstruc-
tivist architecture creates a narrative that describes the story of a building, not its utilitarian characteris-
tics. As a result, postmodern architects like Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid, or Daniel Libeskind provide a
new interpretation of the buildings’ forms and functions by implementing the main theses of conict
and denial.
Fashion deconstruction
Deconstructivist ideas have implications for the world of fashion. The intentions of deconstructivist
architecture have inuenced deconstructivist fashion, for example, in the interplay with material struc-
tures (forms, shapes, schemes). In 1989, fashion photographer Bill Cunningham was the rst to apply
the term ‘deconstruction’ to the fashion phenomenon.3He described the particular method of con-
structing a fashion garment by displacing and disordering its parts. In 1993, Amy Spindler continued
the discussion about fashion deconstruction in the New York Times4by explaining the origins and spe-
cic features of the new fashion movement.
The traditional understanding of fashion involves the primary dressing function implemented in dif-
ferent fashion garments and styles, fabrics, and tailoring.5From this perspective, fashion highlights
one’s beauty, ideal body, and proportions, as well as a particular taste and lifestyle.6Furthermore, it
represents social status, gender stereotypes, income, and cultural values of a person in the clothing.7It
subordinates one’s identity and expresses the role of fashion garments in the individual’s life and social
and urban environment.8Last but not least, mainstream fashion outlines conrmed stereotypes and
the inuence of fashion designers on fashioning the body.
Applied to the fashion phenomenon, the deconstructivist method creates new fashion representations
and interpretations, overcomes fashion stereotypes and fashion attitudes, and crosses typical borders.
Through deconstruction, it constitutes a novelty and introduces both resistance and chaos to the tradi-
tional clothes paradigm. From tailoring reconstruction to the creation of a new system of understand-
ing, the deconstruction of fashion proposes a philosophical approach to identify the relationship with
clothes.9
Deconstructivist fashion is also multifunctional in practice. It can be considered a sustainable practice
or method of fashion tailoring and fashion ideology.10 This fashion can also be presented as a form
of intellectual movement, an art concept from the second half of the 20th century. As a basis of con-
tradiction, this concept considers the denial of already existing fashion standards. Fashion is based on
changing trends and fads for further development and innovations. However, deconstructivist fash-
ion not only carries novelties to the fashion market but also destroys, rejects old patterns, and creates
something qualitatively new. Deconstructivist fashion does not create fashion garments from scratch;
it mostly reinterprets existing fashion patterns. In so doing, it emphasizes the idea of an independent
fashioned body under any garment.
3. Bill Cunningham, “Fashion du Siècle,” Details vol. 8 (1990): 177–300.
4. Amy M. Spindler, “Coming Apart,” The New York Times, July 25, 1993.
5. Christopher Breward, The culture of fashion: a new history of fashionable dress (Manchester: Manchester University Press,
1995).
6. Jennifer Craik, Fashion: the key concepts (Oxford: Berg, 2009).
7. Malcolm Barnard, Fashion as Communication (London-New York: Routledge, 2002).
8. Agnes Rocamora, Fashioning the City: Paris, Fashion and the Media (London-New York: I.B.Tauris, 2009).
9. Flavia Loscialpo, “Fashion and Philosophical Deconstruction: A Fashion in-Deconstruction,” in Fashion Forward, ed. A.
de Witt-Paul and M.Crouch (Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2011), 13–27.
10. Ekaterina Vasil’eva, “Dekonstrukciâ i moda: porâdok i besporâdok,” [Deconstruction and fashion: disorder and order]
Teoriâ mody: odežda, telo, kul’tura vol. 4 (2018): 58–79.
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Deconstruction in Fashion as a Path Toward New Beauty Standards ZMJ. Vol.10 n.1 (2020)
Japanese fashion and deconstruction
In the 1980s, Japanese designers like Rei Kawakubo, Issey Miyake, and Yohji Yamamoto innovatively
applied the deconstructivist method to their fashion collections. Although coming from an ideologically
dierent culture than their Western counterparts, they assimilated Western fashion traditions. However,
they also destroyed the typical fashion image of Oriental fashion. By entering the French fashion market,
these designers behaved provocatively with their collections: By interpreting the notion of traditional
Japanese costume and general Oriental fashion patterns, designers provided an avant-garde approach to
fashion.11 These provocations shocked and surprised fashion followers. Such deconstructivist fashion,
far removed from contemporary fashion standards, sought to become a trend, and they cost as much as
traditional fashion outts.
Thanks to the clothes’ marginal character (shapeless fashion garments that hide the body and had
non-attractive, monochrome, imperfect, or deliberately unmade tailoring and wrong or broken
proportions), these designers — presented the concept of the low social class’s fashion. This opinion
symbolized the social protest that expressed an economic conict and a denial of utilitarian beauty.
While British punk fashion by Vivienne Westwood expressed political or economic protest, Japanese
fashion in the 1970s and 1980s promoted marginal and provocative forms and very specic for Europe
tailoring as reserved philosophical aesthetics.12 This marginal input from Japanese fashion developed
the local fashion market and, particularly, the street style fashion, which spread across the globe;13 it
also extended the global fashion market with an innovative approach to fashion garments.14
Deconstruction in Belgian fashion
This innovative approach was actively promoted and developed by Belgian fashion designers, including
Ann Demeulemeester, Dries van Noten, and Martin Margiela. Teunissen notes that, until the 1980s, it
had been almost impossible to talk about Belgian national fashion.15 Governmental initiatives to pro-
vide nancial support to local fashion designers started a change. The idea of Belgian national fashion
began to spread outside the country, but a few designers decided to distance themselves from others
by performing the deconstruction concept in clothing. As Smelik argues, for fashion diversity and the
development of a national fashion market, it was necessary to develop local fashion by promoting mate-
rial components from the cultural heritage.16 However, the globalization process and high competition
reinterpret the unique context of local fashion identities that create hybrid glocal fashion and a mix
between material objects and immaterial cultural heritage.
These designers created fashion items that did not primarily signify nancial or social status and did
not emphasize the wearer’s attractiveness. As Gill notes, deconstructivist fashion intentionally uses un-
nished forms to create an aesthetic of non-functionality and instability.17 Moreover, deconstructivist
fashion discloses fashion enchantment and destroys the stereotypes in fashion about dressing the body
only to have an attractive image. Gill emphasizes that deconstructing by dismantling clothes is an intel-
lectual practice for analytical work — a critical approach to understanding fashion.
11. Yuniya Kawamura, “The Japanese revolution in Paris fashion,” Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture vol. 8,
no. 2 (2004): 195–223.
12. Alison L. Goodrum, “True Brits? Authoring national identity in Anglo-Japanese fashion exports,” Fashion Theory: The
Journal of Dress, Body & Culture vol. 13, no. 4 (2009): 461–480.
13. Brian Moeran, “A Japanese discourse of fashion and taste,” Fashion Theory vol. 8, no. 1 (2004): 35–62.
14. Yuniya Kawamura, “Placing Tokyo on the Fashion Map: from Catwalk to Streetstyle,” in Fashion’s world cities, ed. Christo-
pher Breward and David Gilbert (Oxford: Berg, 2006), 55–68.
15. José Teunissen, “Deconstructing Belgian and Dutch Fashion Dreams: From Global Trends to Local Crafts,” Fashion The-
ory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture vol. 15, no. 2 (2011): 157–176.
16. Anneke Smelik, “Fashion Matters: The ‘Glocal’ Mix of Dutch Fashion,” ZoneModa Journal [S.l.], vol. 9, no. 2 (2019):
17–31.
17. Alison Gill, “Deconstruction Fashion: The Making of Unnished, Decomposing and Re-assembled Clothes,” Fashion
Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture vol. 2, no. 1 (1998): 25–49.
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According to Gill, the principle of deconstructive thinking consists of four elements. First, the notion of
anti-fashion is an alternative approach, a counter-culture inspired by street culture, the punk movement,
and taboo practices in traditional culture. The incorporated protest (resistance) is expressed by destroy-
ing clothing’s functionality. Second, the notion of zeitgeist (i.e., the spirit of the time) is understood as a
cultural reection of social, economic, and political changes. Moreover, it mirrors cultural, environmen-
tal, and aesthetic confrontations in society, where fashion reproduces historical transformations with
deconstructed garments. Third, eco-fashion reuses, recycles, and applies second-hand clothing to create
new fashion items. As a signicant contribution to the fashion market, this eco-fashion deconstructs
the understanding of glamorous fashion. Finally, by theorizing a dress, Gill emphasizes that clothing has
a function that goes beyond just being utilitarian and is more about constructing a correlation between
a body, the garments, and their interaction with each other.
Belgian fashion designers express deconstructivist ideas through fashion items, create innovative visions
of clothes, and emphasize various details in their fashion garments. However, all of them demand sys-
tematic change in the way we understand the fashion phenomenon. Koda argues that fashion designers
express the aesthetic of poverty by using unnished forms, lacerated tailoring, and outward seams.18
Such an aesthetic symbolizes the shift from expressing nancial status and success through clothing to
articulating social protest through the marginal character of fashion items.
Thus, deconstructivist fashion does not characterize commercial prots or t the trend and is not a
fashion fad — it takes into account individuality and destroys the stereotypes and expectations around
fashion. Its purpose is to search for the fashion garment’s meaning as an independent concept. Decon-
structivist fashion detects the structure of a fashion item.
Fashion techniques in deconstructing clothes
Popular methods in deconstructing fashion relate to typical stereotypes about fashion garments. Decon-
structivist fashion embraces visions about asymmetry, the combination of elements, mixture of styles,
and sophisticated details. In particular, it is relevant to note the following types:
i. exposed seams, raw edges, or asymmetric details (unlike commercial ready-to-wear clothing)
ii. deliberately unnished clothing (e.g., the unnished meaning of a garment)
iii. gender-neutral or anonymous garments (a break with the fashion stereotype of gender-dened
clothing)
According to this idea, fashion items should look unnished — as if they are still in the process of cre-
ation — and challenge beauty standards and fashion stereotypes. By performing these views on disorder
and deconstruction in clothing, fashion designers oer a new understanding of beauty in fashion. This
anti-fashion idea highlights the value of the fashion phenomenon itself, which lies in not fullling the
expectations of fashion standards and fashion attitudes.
Maison Margiela case
With his fashion brand Maison Margiela, Belgian fashion designer Martin Margiela promotes a new
understanding of beauty and fashion standards that rejects common fashion standards and attitudes
and creates new meanings of clothes. Margiela reveals the principles of interaction between clothes and
the fashioned body. The fashion from Margiela does not demand a perfect body or sexual attractiveness;
it boosts self-condence and oers freedom from stereotypes.
Maison Margiela’s brand appeared in the middle of the 1980s as a contrast to the heyday of sexuality
and hyperfemininity when fashion garments aimed to emphasize the feminine sexual body as much
18. Harold Koda, “Rei Kawakubo and the Aesthetic of Poverty,” Dress. The Journal of the Costume Society of America vol. 11,
no. 1 (1985): 5–10.
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as possible.19 The emphasis on gender-prescribed clothes reinforced sexual connotations in clothing
and gendered fashion stereotypes. At the time, Maison Margiela presented collections with raw edges,
exposed linings, scruy, imperfect, unnished-like clothes. With many references to the Japanese de-
signers and their deconstructivist fashion, Maison Margiela was at the forefront of the Belgian wave of
deconstructivist fashion.
As Granata argues, deconstructivist fashion like Maison Margiela performs dierent relationships with
time and temporality.20 The deconstruction process presents a non-linear perspective on time that ob-
tains an anomalous character. Fashion deconstruction appeals to the unusual, which can be expressed
through tailoring techniques such as, for example, deliberately unnished or unstitched clothes, torn
edges, and asymmetry. This kind of fashion garments symbolizes a non-linear perspective on time and
expresses its protest nature, conict narrative, and non-typical order.
As a material object, fashion’s primary function is often considered to be the dressing of the body. In
particular, this process follows dened beauty and fashion standards that are accepted and known in
society; the central message of dressing the body is to complete the task of looking fancy, beautiful, and
fashionable. It is facilitated through a variety of forms, fabrics, styles, and functions of clothes. Also, as
a phenomenon, fashion expresses specic thoughts or identities that are also incorporated into fashion
garments.
Like Maison Margiela, deconstructivist fashion can dismantle clothes into equally signicant parts that
clothes not only accompany the person but express specic ideas. Even while dressing the body, fash-
ion garments act as independent objects. By deconstructing a dressed body, Margiela constitutes new
standards of beauty. In this way, the designer rethinks the function and meaning of fashion garments
and questions the origins of beauty standards in traditional fashion. Not unlike other deconstructivist
fashion designers, Margiela continues to question the understanding of fashion beauty and the fash-
ioned body in Western culture. He features a lot of shapeless silhouettes, deliberately incorrect body
proportions, and gender-free dresses in his work. Moreover, by creating multilayered clothing and over-
sized items to hide the real body proportions and to escape from stereotypes about the model-looking
body, Margiela develops an understanding of neutral, anonymous fashion. Three main ideas navigate
deconstructionist thinking to arrive at new denitions of beauty in fashion today.
Conflict of function
In mainstream fashion, each fashion garment usually fullls a particular purpose: a suit for work, an
evening gown for a special dinner, a mini for a party, sweatpants for jogging, etc. Margiela constructs
clothes as multifunctional and multipurpose: Depending on the combination of details and the
specics of tailoring, one item can be worn, for example, as both a dress and a coat. With this idea in
mind, the designer not only modies the iterated function of clothes but questions the stereotypes
about clothing functions. Such a hybrid dress, because it is universal, ts multiple occasions, dress
codes, and social statuses.
Traditionally fashionable clothes perform a beautiful look and apply bright colors and a variety of
palettes and shades. Those methods and techniques attract attention and highlight a person’s beauty.
As other deconstructivist designers have done, Margiela often operates with monochromatic colors:
black, white, and gray. Doing so turns the focus from colors’ functionality to the color value. Margiela’s
palette is not very attractive at rst glance but oers a perspective on the beauty of a person and of
clothes, far from stereotypes and standards.
Likewise, Margiela works with non-traditional fabrics. While mainstream fashion, following the fash-
ion design paradigm, operates with typical textiles (natural or synthetic), Margiela creates his fashion
19. Agata Zborowska, “Deconstruction in contemporary fashion design: Analysis and critique,” International Journal of Fash-
ion Studies vol. 2 (2015): 185–201.
20. Granata, Francesca. “Deconstruction Fashion: Carnival and the Grotesque,” Journal of Design History vol. 26. no 2 (2013):
182–198.
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Deconstruction in Fashion as a Path Toward New Beauty Standards ZMJ. Vol.10 n.1 (2020)
garments from cellophane and leftovers from ad banners. He deconstructs vintage clothes to use their
fabrics for new fashion items (e.g., a dress made of vintage silk scarfs). Already at the end of the 1980s,
recycling and upcycling methods, which have become so popular today in discussions about sustainable
fashion, became standard tools for the Belgian designer (e.g., sock sweater, jacket from gloves). Margiela
promotes the reuse concept and claims that fabric leftovers have a chance to create a new aesthetic con-
cept.
Conflict of form
In mainstream fashion, tailoring produces a fashion garment by using standardized proportions and
patterns. It uctuates from season to season, from one designer to another, from one fashion fad to
another. However, some forms of fashion are relatively stable in the application. Margiela intentionally
uses asymmetric shapes and overlaps to provide a dynamic range of clothes, uneven hems, and extra
clothing parts (e.g., third sleeve); he calls into question the beauty standards in dressing and makes use
of unstitched seams and raw edges to create a new vision of the fashioned body.
The creative mix of styles and fabrics in one of Margiela’s items provides a new form of clothing that
builds relationships with a dressed body. These clothes deconstruct the opposition to the major role of
a body and the minor role of clothes. The deconstructivist designer again provokes a denial of fashion
stereotypes, the ideal vision of fashion clothes, and the fashioned body. Furthermore, by using exag-
gerated, oversize, excess elements and multilayered clothing, the Belgian designer denies the norms of
body proportion. Mainly, oversize clothes are not in line with the glamorous ideas of fashioning the
body through exaggerated sexuality. Sexuality is hidden, protected, and distorted. It changes the focus
from a fashion function and form to the relationship between a body and clothes. Moreover, the Bel-
gian designer decorates clothes with seams or hems on the outside of the garment, as well as frayed edges
and exposed zippers, to produce a new aesthetic of clothes. Such an aesthetic ignores the traditional
perception of functional details and explores its pure beauty.
By denying the traditional norms of cutting, sewing, and seam processing, Margiela provides a new
interpretation of everyday clothing, displays the accents from the dressing to its details, to clothing as
a complex combination of independent parts. Such a visual clothing transformation emphasizes the
universal idea of fashion garments and accelerates the blurring of borders between xed fashion norms.
Conflict of ideology
One of Margiela’s dresses is targeted at women but is worn by a man at his fashion show. Therefore,
the designer destroys the fashion stereotype about fashion-gendered clothing by oering a gender-free
dress. Such a performance reects the goals of gender-neutral goods, gender tolerance, and free choice
for self-expression. By promoting fashion freedom, the Belgian designer supports the concept of inde-
pendent self-expression that has become so widespread. Margiela also implements the idea of anonymity
in his collections. There is no logo and no brand name on the fashion items — only a symbolic white
rectangular and four stitches to mark the clothes. It is not simply a unique approach to branding but an
approach to clothes themselves, new ideological relations between a person and a dress. The designer
neither appears at his fashion shows nor gives public interviews in front of a camera. He destroys the
stereotype about a designer creating fashion; he constitutes a new relation to fashion garments based on
equilibrium and anonymity. This behavior comes in response to the extensive commercialization of the
fashion market.
Margiela inuences the understanding of fashion models and fashion shows by promoting non-
standardized thinking about fashion performance. Maison Margiela’s models often hide their faces
with a piece of textile, a mask, or a haircut on the catwalk — their performance is completely anony-
mous. In addition, viewers’ focus shifts from the model’s body to the fashion item itself. Some models
are literally chosen from the streets — the designer destroys the understanding of a perfect fashion
model. His fashion shows often take place in unusual locations (subway station, crossroads, old
factories); thus, by denying the idea of glamour in the fashion world, he creates new spaces in which
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to express fashion thoughts. The considerable ideological position of Margiela’s works points to a
category of success — in the social, cultural, nancial dimensions — that is independent of fashion
garments. The privileged status of the fashion phenomenon is under consideration. Thus, clothes
become irrelevant to expressing great achievements, happiness, or beauty.
Maison Margiela’s fashion wardrobe is easy to use and universal; it constructs basic items that are
comfortable and convenient for everyone. At the same time, Margiela’s ideology explains to consumers
the relationships with clothes: They are equal, innovative, universal, and always questioning. Even
pretending to be called “ugly fashion” for its destructive and disseminated forms and functions,
Margiela’s fashion establishes new beauty by breaking the stereotypes about fashion clothing being
only attractive and accurate.
Tabi boots as an example of Margiela’s fashion deconstruction
The most signicant and recognizable fashion item from Maison Margiela is tabi boots. For many cen-
turies an element of the Japanese wardrobe, tabi boots received major attention from fashion followers
after its fashion presentation by Martin Margiela in 1988. As a reconstruction of traditional Japanese
shoes, these split-toe sock boots from the Belgian designer with 30 years of fashion history epitomize the
brand’s success and importance. Japanese culture and fashion inspired the Belgian designer to include
tabi boots as a key fashion item in many of his collections. With its very unusual performance at the cat-
walk, he highlighted the signicance of these shoes for his creative art. And by rethinking the traditional
Japanese garment, Margiela brought tabi boots to the catwalk and reshaped the understanding of female
footwear. Wearing tabi boots has become fashionable and noteworthy, especially in tiny communities
of fashion inuencers. Moreover, this fashion garment has appeared in many of his collections, every
time receiving new interpretations or variations.
The form of these shoes is unusual, deconstructed, and changed. Their function is questionable due
to the controversial application and performance within the fashion house. The ideological message
combines local cultural heritage and fashion traditions with a modern interpretation and deconstructed
understanding of utilitarian beauty.
Conclusion
This paper explains the concept of deconstructivist fashion by using the example of the Maison Margiela
fashion brand. Inspired by philosophical discussions about deconstruction and practical inputs of de-
constructivist architecture, fashion designers, mainly from Japan and Belgium, have established a new
idea of fashion. This idea denies the traditional understanding of clothes’ utilitarian function and dis-
mantles fashion garments to generate new meanings and interpretations. Moreover, the paper explains
the cultural and aesthetic roots of the fashion of deconstruction. The nature of protest and the inten-
tion to establish conict in order to nd new inspiration for and interpretations of fashion garments
characterize deconstructivist fashion designers.
Particularly, by deconstructing familiar fashion and beauty standards, Martin Margiela represents the
Belgian component of postmodernist fashion. He explains the conicting nature of clothes by decon-
structing, rst, the functionality of clothes, second, typical forms and manufacturing, and nally, the
ideology of fashion items. By bringing symbolic disorder to the understanding and interpretation of
clothing, Margiela promotes the inclusiveness of his clothes. He creates fashion out of social status,
gender stereotypes, and fashion standards and norms. Similarly, he constructs the understanding of
universal, basic clothes but also, at the same time, clothing that is very anonymous and free of labels,
standards, and social judgment. The branding of his items also reects this idea as they do not feature
the name of the designer. This conrms the anonymous character of the clothes, which should be con-
sidered separately from the person.
Deconstructivist fashion today has changed the traditional relationship between fashion consumers and
fashion garments. Fashioning the body is more than just standardized functions and stereotypes. It is
about expanded values and interpretations, freedom of self-expression, and beauty for everyone.
https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2611-0563/11086 47
Deconstruction in Fashion as a Path Toward New Beauty Standards ZMJ. Vol.10 n.1 (2020)
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Maria Skivko: Samara National Research University (Russian Federation)
maria.skivko@gmail.com
She is an Associate Professor at the Department of Social Systems and Law at the Samara National Research Uni-
versity (Samara, Russia). She specializes in fashion and cultural studies, trend-searching and trend-analysis, urban
studies, and digital culture. In her doctoral thesis completed at the Bauhaus-University Weimar (Germany), she
investigated fashion and urban representations performed through the media discourse in fashion magazines.
https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2611-0563/11086 49
