Coat

Belgian designer Martin Margiela is known for the recycling and détournement of existing garments, whereby said garments get incorporated into another design or switch function. Margiela’s collections and their conceptual presentations question the fast fashion cycle of overconsumption in an often playful or surrealist manner. Margiela instills temporality into the garments using different concepts, such as the idea of the replica of a timeless historical garment. These icons have stood the test of time and can always be seen with new eyes. This garment, a woolen replica of a priest’s soutane was presented as an overcoat in the fall/winter 1992–93 collection, which was shown in the sales hall of the Parisian Salvation Army, just as a journalist compared the work to “clothes that seemed to come out of Salvation Army boxes”.