Date: 1957-

Biography: In 1989, a contingent of young designers from Antwerp, Belgium, known as the “Antwerp Six,” shook the high fashion world. The most revolutionary among them was Martin Margiela. His “new” designs looked as if they had been pulled apart, while certain components, like sleeves and pockets, were inverted and displaced, then reconstructed with the interfacings and raw edges deliberately on view. Historical elements, such as the hidden pockets worn by women in the eighteenth century, became ornamental accessories worn over his pinstriped pants. Interior elements that are usually carefully hidden—such as linings, shoulder pads, interfacings, and padding—became both structure and ornament for Margiela. Even small details, like snap closures, were sewn on with raw basting stitches and became a form of applied ornament. These reconfigured elements reflected Margiela’s appreciation for reclamation. “I love the idea of recuperation. I believe that it is beautiful to make new things out of rejected or worn things,” he said. Born in Genk, Belgium, in 1957, Margiela studied fashion design at the Royal Academy. Prior to launching his company, Maison Martin Margiela, he worked as a freelancer. Between 1997 and 2003, he became a creative director at the venerated house of Hermès. A notoriously elusive figure, Margiela never had his picture taken, remained backstage after his shows, and maintained all media contact via fax. Even his clothing labels were ultra-discreet: a piece of cloth, printed with only a number from 0-23 (to denote a specific line), is attached to the inside with four little, white pick stitches that are visible on the outside of unlined garments. After his company was acquired by the Diesel brand in 2002, Margiela slowly began to retreat from his designer role. By 2009, his break from his company was formally announced. While deconstruction was built upon a foundation laid by Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto as early as 1981, Margiela was the first to have his work defined by use of the term “deconstruction.” Bill Cunningham of the New York Times noted that Margiela “realized a brash new spirit exploding out of rap music and deconstructivist architectural impulses…the clothes and the manner in which they were shown—tops of dresses falling down over the hips, intriguing undergarments revealed, plastic dry-cleaning bags serving as tops. Jackets were hardly recognizable, the sleeves tied about the waist like a schoolchild’s sweater.” Margiela has been deconstruction’s most catholic practitioner. From his first seminal runway show, held inside a crumbling building in a Parisian ghetto in 1989, to his seminal 1997 exhibition highlighting items from his archives that he coated in mold and bacteria, to his most recent jewelry pieces made from the crystal drops of old chandeliers, he long stood as the preeminent master of redefining beauty through an aesthetic that suggests rag-picking and recuperation. Indeed, Bill Cunningham from The New York Times credited him with the “overthrow of the old regime of fossilized elegant taste.” In 2015 Margiela left his namesake company and John Galliano was appointed as Creative Director of Maison Margiela.