We explore the greatest moments where bedding became appropriate everyday attire
Last week, McQ released their new campaign (which features a semi-shirted man lounging on a wonderfully inviting bed) and John Galliano showed his second Artisanal collection for Maison Margiela (featuring a voluminous throwback to Margiela's days of yore). And so this week, on an overcast Monday afternoon, it feels like the perfect moment to explore a sartorial motif that is both disappointingly weather appropriate and brilliantly on trend. From the Margiela archives to Celine A/W15, here are some of our favourite moments where fashion was filled with feathers and bedding became appropriate attire.
Maison Martin Margiela A/W99
The original instigator of duvet fashion was Maison Martin Margiela back in A/W99. Employing Italian manufacturer Featherlite (ordinarily responsible for the production of actual duvets) to create their legendary duvet coats, the pieces were filled with 100% down feathers and featured detachable sleeves for the ultimate in multi-functional fashion. Additional pieces were available – literally, duvet covers – made in materials from denim to PVC, meaning that one's duvet could even become waterproof for particularly gloomy duvet days.
Maison Margiela Artisanal A/W15
Maison Margiela Artisanal was established in 2006, offering opportunity for materials sourced from around the world to be repurposed by hand into garments that, as Tim Blanks once explained "corrals a number of different creative impulses: finding preciousness in the un-precious or the overlooked, asking compelling questions about what constitutes value in fashion, and celebrating the craft of the hand." This season's collection – the second under Galliano's direction – saw the original key codes of the house brought into the limelight as (literal) potato sacks became dresses and carpetry, jackets. The duvet dress was reimagined, transformed into twisted bundles, some even complete with plasticky protective sheeting for an outfit that transformed the banal into the spectacular with resounding success.
McQ Campaign A/W15
Shot by Harley Weir, McQ's new A/W15 campaign "captures the non conformist attitude and nonchalant beauty of the McQ girl and guy" – and it truly is a beautiful version nonchalance that is embodied by its lounging, half-shirted model. Founded in 2005 by Alexander McQueen and originally licenced by SINV SpA, the label returned under the direction of the brand in 2011 and ever since has offered a youthful twist on the house's key codes. Here, it makes us want to crawl into bed.
Céline A/W15
Anothermag.com editor Laura Bradley once instructed us that, "Céline-ism no. 7" in her lexicon of Céline-themed lifestyle tips is that "Relaxed can be chic." She quoted Cathy Horyn's statement in T Magazine that "probably no one defines the modern sense of comfort with more authority than Phoebe Philo of Céline" – and what is more chic or comfortable than the brand's A/W15 offerings, which included plenty of padded coats that could easily double up as comforters and blankets draped over the shoulders like capes?
Comme des Garçons A/W15
Rather than a cosy presentation of blankets and duvets, at Comme des Garçons A/W15 tumbling pillows decorated with bows presented a mournful suggestion of the eternal sleep. A staging of the "ceremony of separation," the show was a deeply emotive exploration not only of fabrication and form but of the very essence of humanity; as Susannah Frankel explained, it was "an immensely brave and beautiful proposition and its poignancy will remain long after the season closes."
