MM6 Maison Margiela RTW Spring 2022

Giovanni Giannoni/WWD

Ah, the simple pleasure of sitting on a café terrace for an aperitivo. The MM6 Maison Margiela team left boxed snacks, including pickled onions in a jar painted white, offered beer and gin cocktails and then served up a compact, quirky collection of white suiting and black dresses with extra sleeves here and there; warped chessboard prints galore, and a hilarious faux-fur roller suitcase in collaboration with Eastpak.

The look: Power suits, soigné evening gowns and rugged streetwear with a surrealist bent, all the way through to clownish, checkerboard printed ensembles with neck ruffs. Surrrealist female artists Claude Cahun, Leonora Carrington and Dorothea Tanning were among the muses for the design team.

Quote of note: “Sleeves and gloves become key vehicles for the collection’s surreal undertones, protruding from trouser waistbands, bag handles and even the back panels of a leather jacket, and traces of the making process are felt in a kraft paper bustier and an intricately pleated calico ruff skirt.”

Key pieces: Black evening columns made of elegantly sagging lining fabric; and taut biker jackets with extra sleeves hugging the waist.

Takeaway: If you’re plotting a “The Queen’s Gambit” party or binge rewatch, you’ll be spoiled for choice for chessboard-patterned clothes.