Solemn silhouettes and sharp tailoring set the tone for Martin Quad’s SS26 runway, offering a stark glimpse into the severe, sterile world of emergency rooms
A scene of eerie descends when the models walk onto the Martin Quad runway. Deadpan expressions match the severity of the looks. White shirts and black suits, their tailoring deconstructed and restructured so that sleeves face inward, exposing raw seams while waistbands reach up to cut below the chest.
There’s a pantamime-feel to the procession – founder and creative director Martin Quad has lent himself to performance art in the past. The SS26 collection is a product of Quad’s reaction to the 1989 photography book The Knife and Gun Club, a black-and-white depiction of emergency room scenes and the gravity of tensions they create.
“The show draws no inspiration from sickness or injury,” Quad explains, “but rather its associated tension and spaces – sterile textures, fluorescent lights, ambient chaos, pressed uniforms, unspoken urgency.” The designs are clinical, the accessories finished with a nitrile-like shine, like the black nurse caps balanced beret-style atop heads. A torn shoulder seam protrudes to resemble a wound.
The show has a narrative, lent from the Star of Life, the six-ended symbol of the Emergency Medical Services. “It follows a muse-like figure through six acts, unfolding as a visceral meditation on fragility, intervention, and human restoration.”
See all the looks from Martin Quad's SS26 collection below.
