It was a tragic, rain-tossed night seemingly lit by candlelight and stars. When the cab arrived at John Galliano’s Maison Margiela present in January on the Pont Alexandre III—the final of the couture for that week—a whole lot of youngsters have been ready and screaming for their very own stars. I made my method by means of the crowds earlier than realizing that I might then need to navigate a collection of rain-sodden steps to reach to the Seine-side constructing hidden away beneath that magnificent Beaux Arts bridge. I had a stroke somewhat over a yr in the past, and I’m not as assured with such steps as I as soon as was, however I braved them bit by tentative bit—I needed to—and clung on to the handrail for pricey life. The archways of the riverside pont had been cleverly trompe l’oeiled with a delicate Thirties look, revealing a battered and forlorn nightclub with some tables and chairs set outdoors (through the rainstorm they have been shielded from the pitter-pat hailing down past the bridge).

Inside was a seedy ’30s membership supported by strong arches of stone, with run-down floorboards resulting in preparations of billiard tables and Thonet chairs. The Galliano gang—at my gathering of tables sat Lila Grace Moss, Tish Weinstock, and the ravishing ballerina Francesca Hayward (I’d simply seen her as a heartbreaking Manon Lescaut on the Royal Opera Home)—had dressed the half in barely-there vestiges of lace and chiffon or sweeping trench coats. And we waited. And waited. I believe an hour had passed by earlier than Francesca, as punctual as any ballet star, questioned: Was it all the time like this?

I, nonetheless, was faintly trembling: A lot had been put into this scene-setting that I felt the outcomes could be…particular. I didn’t wait lengthy to seek out out. On screens dotted all through, a story of the ocean ended with its good-looking crooner showing earlier than us, marching by means of the zigzag pathway and tossing his coat, revealing one hand that didn’t exist and a voice that was a dream. These faint trembles have been ricocheting by means of my physique—after which they got here: males with corsets as tight as could be, trousers deftly caught with basting stitches; girls with skirts that owed one thing to Vionnet, bosoms proud, thighs expanded, and waists constricted as hell. This was a second. Margiela, beneath John’s beautiful hand, was seen to perfection in every single place—each piece of embroidery; each curve of satin in a corset; an ebony coat with a Fifties dazzle to it cinched-in midriff, extra basting stitches defining the closure; one other swimsuit with black lace worn over a white basis that pushed and pulled the physique like a larger-than-life doll.

I considered the primary present I had seen of John’s—his first present ever. He wasn’t even meant to have one: He was at Saint Martins, getting ready his diploma submission for the summer time of 1984, and had made a fabulous assortment of drawings (John was a fashion-drawing scholar)—so good, the truth is, that he had already secured a job in New York after commencement. John had taken to the library, the place he constructed a barrier of types—outdated certain copies of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar—excessive sufficient to discourage onlookers and behind which he spun his desires. His exceptional design tutor, Sheridan Barnett, noticed what he was engaged on and insisted that he convey his drawings to life.

And that’s how the style designer was born. Information of superior pattern-cutting was not John’s forte, however a way of bravura within the proportions was, and he bought collectively fairly a good-looking crew to make his dream occur. He was chosen to supply the Saint Martins finale, a excessive honor, and there was an actual sense of—I don’t know—one thing spine-​tingling about to occur. The music, a mixture of soul and “La Marseillaise,” began, and his ragtag troupe of incroyables—the dandies who emerged on the French Revolution, with all their affectations—got here hollering down the runway, their voluminous coats rolled up like ships in full sail, their tea-stained organza shirts with excessive, excessive necks and hems spherical their knees. These incroyables (amongst them the winsome 17-year-old Camilla Nickerson, face whitened across the eyes like an 18th-century floozy) carried gnarled sticks, wore knitted hats trimmed with crimson, white, and blue ribbons, and cried out like an avenging horde.

It was throughout in a couple of minutes, however each final element was perfection, and one felt {that a} star had been born. Joan Burstein (a.ok.a. Mrs. B), proprietor of Browns, then essentially the most modern store in London, advised John that she wished the whole lot—and she or he wished it the day after. He wheeled his gown rail all the way in which from school to the boutique (he couldn’t afford a automobile) to fashion its home windows; Barbra Streisand and Diana Ross have been his first clients. The late-18th-century-style waistcoats with buttons product of George VI cash, pierced for fastening, needed to be restitched (by me; I used to be two years beneath John and gladly did his bidding) with ivory-hued plastic examples—a crotchety passerby had famous that one was not allowed to pierce the picture of a monarch!

John’s subsequent presentation, Afghanistan Repudiates Western Beliefs—a static one, as John didn’t have the cash to placed on a present—was illustrated with a Nineteen Twenties Punch cartoon exhibiting an Afghan topic of King Amanullah Khan stomping on a bowler hat. It was a treasure trove of wealthy brown and wine tones, Afghan furry hats, and overscaled jackets and waistcoats scrunched up—however by the point of his third staging, The Ludic Sport, he had the funds to convey his creativeness to life, and the present throbbed with a soundtrack created by Jeremy Healy (ex–Haysi Fantayzee), who has combined John’s music by means of the a long time, together with the newest Margiela providing. For The Ludic Sport, John was misplaced within the medieval period, his materials showing like fields seen from the clouds above. Amanda Harlech (on the time nonetheless recognized by her maiden title, Amanda Grieve) had tied clothes up with bits of string and garlanded the revelers with hats trimmed with flotsam and jetsam. Each character had a component, and they might seem, then reappear: It was wonderful chaos. One in every of them hurled a fish on the viewers—Suzy Menkes, then the doyen of The Occasions, caught it in her lap.

A couple of years later, John had moved to Paris, the place he’d lived on pals’ flooring and eaten tinned baked beans, however his garments have been now exquisitely made. After exhibiting some transportingly lovely collections, although, his monetary backers had shied away, and John was with out the wherewithal to proceed. With three weeks to go earlier than curtain-up, Vogue’s André Leon Talley stepped in and insisted that John merely had to indicate, and, earlier than lengthy, the socialite São Schlumberger surrendered her ravishing Left Financial institution Louis Seize palace, the women (Naomi, Linda, Kate) all flocked to do the present for nothing, and John was crafting genius out of a single material—a black crepe that was matte on one aspect, shining vibrant on the opposite. The women and their Julien d’Ys hair sculptures have been visions of perfection, as John’s 18 seems to be shocked us all. The next season—for spring 1995, in Paris’s Pin Up Studios—he introduced us ’50s fits with cinched waists, pencil skirts, and craftily pleated collars. A season later, amongst the rooftops of an imagined Paris, he set the snow falling on a group of dramatic opera coats and night clothes reduce to fall across the physique, flowers unfurling over the shape as they did.

It was completely different in January, after all, but it surely was in the identical spirit, with its raggle-taggle mob of individuals taking part in their components, their our bodies caught within the excellent twist, their garments—black lace swirled as much as exaggerated proportions, the mild thud of the practice of an embroidered skirt—captured within the half-light; Gwendoline Christie in a cinched corset of blue-and-white cotton, veiled in a ’50s plastic whoosh, her face bewitchingly reworked by Pat McGrath. It was all one thing utterly, indescribably magic.