Maison Martin Margiela is a fashion company created in Paris in 1988. They are known for their taste for transgression, their fashion shows in unexpected places, catagorised as underground, deconstructive, grunge destroy, minimalist, established. It is a totally white label, the collections don’t have names, but anonymous numbers. There are 12 collections,identified by a circled number on the label.
Left: the main line’s plain white cotton label sewn into the garments by hand, by means of four white stitches. Precisely by not claiming his designs by means of a signature, Margiela seems to disavow absolute innovation. Right: Maison Martin Margiela’s imagery is saturated with references to haute couture and the craft of tailoring. Traces of the production process are literally turned inside out. Elements directly referring to the manufacturing process, such as lining, seams, darts, paper patterns, shoulder pads, and so forth, are turned to the outside of the garment. (image: Spring- Summer 1997)
Spring-Summer 1997
The shows staged by the house of Margiela are so striking due to the indistinguishability of the models. In other fashion houses, the models have become the absolute stars of fashion, and their recognisability is immediately bankable. As omnipresent faces of publicity, they offer a point of narcissistic identification while being the driving forces of sales. The ‘in-famy’ Maison Martin Margiela forces on its models runs counter to the iconicity of these idols of the modern. The anonymity the Maison imposes upon its models during the fashion shows oscillates between discretion and violence. In Maison Martin Margiela’s publications, the black strip placed over the eyes of those who are photographed refers to the safeguarding of the anonymity of the suspect or convicted criminal who should not be made recognizable for fear that popular outrage might be unleashed upon him. They should remain incognito for as long as they are infamous. In the Spring-Summer 2008 collection, the black strip Maison Martin Margiela usually places over the models’ eyes has been transformed into sunglasses. Nonetheless, the wearer is still associated with the infamy characteristic of the social outcast. Alternatively, the veiling of the models by means of wrapping their faces in cotton gauze evokes the erotic tension of disguising and uncovering. ‘In-famous’ in the strict sense of the word is also Martin Margiela’s choice for remaining nameless and anonymous as a fashion designer. ‘In-famous’ is also his refusal of endowing his collections with bombastic names. Instead, he identifies them by merely giving them a number.
Spring-Summer 2008
Spring-Summer 2008
As young as Maison Martin Margiela’s history may be, no other fashion house has had quite the same impact on our conception of fashion and its underlying system, as well as our views regarding fashion and history, craft, commerce, authorship and innovation. Maison Martin Margiela’s whole oeuvre challenges conventional perceptions of authenticity, the body, fashion’s illusion that it can create a standardized ‘body’ fitted for the mass production of clothes, the opposition between ‘high’ and ‘low’ fashion and the role of the designer. Contrary to what is customary in fashion, the designs are not bound to trends or seesawing tendencies. Ideas or concepts from previous collections, as well as elements taken from collective fashion memory are continuously retrofitted into new collections. More often than not, collections reiterate a concept, body image or technique that was introduced in a previous season. From this perspective, the creations by Maison Martin Margiela are to be read as constituting a single extended continuum, where ideas and concepts are taken to their extreme in order to push creative horizons
For Martin Margiela, white has a very specific meaning: “White means the strength of fragility and the fragility of unity, purity and honesty. It is never just white but more -whites - all the shades possible! We usually use matt white so that the passage of time is evident.” The layer of white paint creates the illusion of a neutral canvas, as if the Maison wants to establish its own tabula rasa with history. When the garment is actually worn, the paint will slowly start to crack, ultimately making the colour and texture of the original item visible once again. Here, the designer presents the impossibility of denying history, something that contemporary fashion indeed pretends to be able to do. The painted object serves as a palimpsest that slowly gives way to layers of a hidden past. This feature rather emphatically highlights the process of ageing while simultaneously ensuring that each piece retains a certain degree of specificity. Depending on the wearer’s demeanour, as well as a host of external factors, each item is allowed to ‘change’ in its own unique way. Time imbues these designwith a unique patina. Paint is also literally used for leaving traces. During its very first show presenting the SpringSummer 1989 collection, Maison Martin Margiela bathed their models in red paint before they entered the stage. The small boots with split toes, modelled after the Japanese tabi sock, left behind striking red prints on the white cotton catwalk. The presentation of the ensuing collection of Autumn-Winter 1989-1990 took off with a display of waistcoats that were manufactured from the paint-stained cotton that donned the catwalk of that previous show. The fronts of the waistcoats were affixed to the garments by means of strips of brown tape, and included the handwritten words ‘Paris 23 Octobre 1988,’ in reference to the date of the very first fashion show. Statements like these aptly illustrate how, right from the start, Maison Martin Margiela allowed the past to seep into its oeuvre and the deliberateness with which it carries over its own history into each new collection.
Spring-Summer 1992
Spring-Summer 1989
Maison Martin Margiela’s tabi boots have become one of fashion houses’ most iconic objects. These are inspired by Japanese tabi. These are ankle-high socks with a split for the big toe and were worn with traditional Japanese sandals. The versions with rubber soles are still worn in Asia by construction workers, farmers and gardeners. They allow greater agility for the feet and toes and facilitate the mounting of traditional bamboo scaffolding. Since the very first collection, the tabi boots have been part of Maison Martin Margiela’s oeuvre. Over the last twenty years, the house has produced countless variations in different materials. The original Margiela tabi boot combines the split toe of the tabi-sock with the round heel that characterized the 70’s
Maison Martin Margiela’s silhouette has changed considerably over the years. At the end of the 1980s, Maison Martin Margiela adopted a radically new silhouette, defined by its length and the strikingly narrow shoulders, in strong contrast to the power-dress trend of the 1980’s. Since the Spring-Summer 2007 collection, Maison Martin Margiela has been experimenting with extreme shoulder proportions. The fashion house characterizes this shift as an evolution towards a longer, slimmer and more architectural silhouette. Spring-Summer 1997
Autumn-Winter 1989-1990
Autumn-Winter 2007-2008
Spring-Summer 2000
Spring-Summer 2002
Maison Martin Margiela Graphic Design: Janna Van Doninck Text: Barbara Vinken, Kaat Debo Photocredits: pg 3 : Jacques Sonck pg 4 : Ronald Stoops pg 6 : Marina Faust pg 8 : Marina Faust pg 10: Barbara Katz pg 11: Guy Voet pg 12: Bob Verhelst pg 13: Raf Coolen pg 14: MoMu