Nighthawk: The Story Behind the Maison Margiela Artisanal Collection is now on Your Screens

Conceived by creative director John Galliano and directed by Sasha Kasiuha, “Nighthawk” delves into Maison’s hit Spring-Summer 2024 Artisanal couture show. Right, the collection everybody has been talking about since January when John Galliano presented it in Paris for Maison Margiela during Haute Couture week and probably will be talking about in the years to come. The film itself is a work of art, produced in splendid form mixing elements from a horror movie and a classic fashion documentary with commentaries by all the insiders - think Kim Kardashian, Gwendoline Christie, Lucky Love, Duffy, and Pat McGrath, who were lucky to live the moment with Galliano and his teams. Pure fashion magic.

You can watch it on YouTube here and read on to learn more about the movie.

Galliano in his own words

John Galliano, the main protagonist, is also the film’s narrator. With his husky voice, the designer recites the story of the collection and his characters that inhabit the Seine’s river banks under the bridges once the sun goes down from dusk till dawn - the nighthawks. It’s a fashion horror story, after all! Unfortunately, Galliano was not present at the film’s premiere at Balzac cinema, fuelling the rumours that he parted ways with the emblematic fashion house.

Immersive Experience

The premiere screening for the happy few took place during Paris Fashion Week in one of the most iconic cinemas of the City of Lights - Le Cinéma Balzac, a hidden treasure in the 8th arrondissement, just two steps away from the Champs Elysées. During the screening, the nighthawks appeared in the cinema, taking their places among the guests and playing out IRL some of the most dramatic scenes from the movie, including a murder.

Couture inspired by Brassaï

Images of Parisians documented by the iconic photographer were the starting point of this collection. The studio tried to recreate the light from Brassai’s black-and-white shots through clothes. Galliano calls it unconscious glamour: it’s in this imperfect moment that you capture the truth. Moonshine on the clothes inspired some of the fabrics’ treatments and sun and moon-bathed prints. Other Brassai-inspired techniques included gestural cutting - producing emotion in cutting and clothes that reflect the habits of the characters posing in the pictures, and silicone printing on the trousers as if you stepped out of a puddle in rainy Paris.  

Porcelain dolls

Among the nighthawks, some of the most remarkable creatures are life-sized porcelain dolls from the 30s, that have unfortunately fallen into the Seine. Their outstanding looks were created by the make-up guru and Galliano’s comrade in arms Pat McGrath who experimented with her teams for months before coming up with the idea of putting a peel of skincare mask over full make-up via an airbrush tool to create the glass-like finish, mimicking porcelain skin, as if a digital filter was applied and put into the real world. This look was championed by Gwendoline Christie among other models of the show.  

Courtesy: OTB

 Text: Lidia Ageeva