یو بینک ہوم لون - گورنمنٹ مارک اپ سبسڈی اسکیم

At this Paris catwalk show, the philosophy of Maison Margiela was clear: to unpick fashion rather than use it to brandish wealth

In the light of Oxfam’s recent report that 62 individuals own as much of the world’s wealth as the poorer half of the global population, the Paris haute couture collections hawking six-figure cocktail dresses embellished with gold leaf or mink trim make a twisted kind of economic sense.

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John Galliano’s Maison Margiela Artisanal collection, however, is less easy to explain. It is an official haute couture catwalk show, held in an imposing gallery of the Hotel des Invalides to a tinkly, Parisian cafe-society soundtrack. As with the other shows, the prices are kept discreet, presumably lest word of them should spark a revolution. And yet these are definitively not clothes designed to appeal to the super rich, being as much about rags as they are about riches.