Maison Martin Margiela
Maison Martin Margiela was founded by Martin Margiela in 1988 after he graduated from Antwerp’s Academy of Fine Arts in 1979 and worked for Jean Paul Gaultier. Although he graduated a year prior, he is often considered an honorary member of the “Antwerp Six.” He is renowned for his innovative use of recycled and unconventional materials, deconstruction techniques, raw finishes, and experimental fashion shows.
Martin Margiela notoriously refused to have his picture taken, rarely gave interviews, and always remained backstage after his fashion shows. In a similar effort to keep the attention on the clothes and the design, all of the employees dress in white lab coats, and runway models' faces have often been obscured by hair and other face coverings. With the house’s product expansion, every new line was given a number from 0 to 23, as a non-chronological reference code. Margiela launched his first menswear collection in 1998, known as line 10. The ranges also expanded to include fine jewellery (12), footwear (22), eyewear (8), objects (13) and fragrance (3). Design signatures of the house include hand tacked clothing tags, sewn onto garments with four white stitches, visible from the garment’s exterior - a subtle signal of cool for fashion insiders – and the cleft-toe Tabi shoes.
In 2002, Maison Martin Margiela became a public company with the majority share acquired by Diesel Group (now OBT) owner Renzo Russo. The Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, haute couture’s governing body (now the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode), invited Maison Martin Margiela to show their first haute couture collection on the official Paris schedule in May 2006.
In 2009, Russo revealed that Martin had not been at the label for “a long time” and confirmed that no successor would be appointed. A new anonymous design team was brought in, though it was later disclosed that designer Demna Gvasalia was responsible for the women’s collections from 2009 to 2013. In 2012, Maison Martin Margiela debuted its first fast fashion collaboration with H&M featuring adapted archive Margiela pieces.
John Galliano was the first public replacement of Martin Margiela as the house’s creative director in 2014. Coinciding with his debut collection, the house dropped "Martin" from its name, in favor of "Maison Margiela." Galliano stepped down in 2024 after a successful decade at the helm, and Glenn Martens was appointed as his successor.
