Through the eyes of a former fashion guru

At M Woods museum in Beijing, Margiela has built a series of spaces that allow viewers to experience the exhibition as an alternative world.

The entire exhibition space is filled with the designer's characteristic visual cleanliness, with a lot of white background, reminding people of his all-white studio. Elements including fingernails, wigs and hair, which show the personality of modern people, are magnified; and sculptures with a classical sense of majesty, according to Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel, who curated Margiela's first exhibition in Paris, tell of "the passing away of time".

The traditional entrance and exit of the museum are reversed; sculptures and installations such as Torso (2018-22) and Cartography (2019) need to be activated in an interactive performance; and he has used the museum's old canteen as the main image for his large installation Monument on the front facade of the museum.

Vanitas (2019), for example, is formed using several silicone heads covered with wigs of different colors. The hair color goes from blond to gray, which reflects human aging and death. The artwork is inspired by the namesake philosophy from Dutch still life paintings in the 17th century that discuss death. Margiela expresses the concept with a long history in a modern way through the materials he used in fashion design.