MMM "Fucking Things Up From The Inside"

Bullett: Martin Margiela’s Inside Joke: Getting to the Heart of MMM for H&M

This past weekend, hundreds of silent “protesters” dressed in black with white atelier aprons took to the streets of Paris, Hong Kong and San Francisco with placards advertising H&M with Maison Martin Margiela. At first sight, I assumed the protest was real, a reaction to the recent allegations of poor labor conditions at H&M’s Cambodian factories, or something more. But, no, I read on, it’s just another ad campaign. Or is it?

If the Maison isn’t making money from their H&M products, what are they gaining? Exposure, maybe. But I think it’s something more: MMM’s H&M repros make obvious the differences in material (in quality and production) and belief (insider versus mass) between their once elite clothes and those of high street. The paradox is so obvious, it can’t not be intentional. Team Margiela is doing their most disruptive work yet, no longer standing, discrete and whitewashed, on the outside, but fucking things up from the inside.

HMMMM