Martin Margiela, rightfully nicknamed the “J. D. Salinger of the fashion world,” rejects the idea of being photographed and only grants interview via fax. Moreover, he prefers not labeling his designs, and branding them with blank labels instead (Art and Culture). This is because he was opposed to designers’ “status-hungry cult” of the 1980s (Answers Corporation). Born on April 9, 1957, in Louvain, Belguim, this underexposed designer, formalized his design prowess by studying in the Royal Academy of Fine Art Fashion Department in Antwerp from 1977 to 1979.
He worked as a design assistant to Jean Paul Gaultier from 1984 to 1987 (Index of Maison Martin Margiela), the experience of which “profoundly shaped his fashion sense” and style (Art and Culture). However, with broader design visions, he left Gaultier in 1988 and finally established his own label called “Maison Martin Margiela” in Paris, with help from Ms Jenny Meiren (Index of Maison Martin Margiela). Even with a young career, he already became part of the Antwerp Six, an important fashion group that included Dries van Noten, Ann Demeulemeester, and Walter Van Beirendonck (Art and Culture).
The fashion movement has forever changed fashion and the industry with its revolutionary designs and ideas (Infomat Incorporated). Moreover, Margiela is “closely associated with the deconstructionist fashion movement of the 1980s” (Victoria and Albert Museum). In his first show, with a white-covered catwalk, he let his models, who wearing socks saturated with red paint, walk the runway, leaving red footprints. His collection included “slashed and faded” clothes, with very visible “linings and frayed edges” (Designer History). Thus, with just one look at Magiela and his clothes, one can conclude that he is indeed a “deconstructionalist.”
Since its birth, the label “Maison Martin Margiela” “has accompanied its pret-a-porter collection with garments, accessories and objects defined by the name ‘artisanal’” (Designboom). He successfully transformed “the mundane and banal into beauty,” that made him stand out at the forefront of the Antwerp Six (Infomat Incorporated). Margiela’s design is characterized by “a poetic appreciation of imperfection, personality and eccentricity” (Victoria and Albert Museum). His mastery of deconstruction is creatively done by disassembling a garment and reassembling it as another (Mercante).
He is well known for his stand-out theme-oriented collection (Art and Culture). Moreover, Margiela is also noted for his clothes that go back “to the ripped t-shirts of the punks and the subsequent street style of slicing jeans with razor blades. ” He was noted saying, “My main inspiration has always has been the extremities and changes of daily life” (qtd. in Victoria and Albert Museum). Furthermore, he was quoted by “Elle” in April 1991 as saying that his slashing of old clothes is a way of “bringing them back to life in a different form” (qtd. in Answers Corporation).
While some conservative members of the fashion industry raised an eyebrow to his authenticity, young trendsetters gladly welcome his creation. His idea of detached sleeves “harks back to the way clothes were made in the Middle Ages, when mercenaries first slashed their silken garments” and his “cloven-toed boot-shoe and fingers laced in ribbons are rebellious statements in a world of high fashion orthodoxy. ” In addition, his wild imagination also calls to mind the “sartorial liberty of the 1970s, in contrast with the conservatism of the 1980s.
Also, “like the hippies who pillaged flea markets,” he recycled old and rejected clothes, thus focusing on “individual creativity rather than consumerism” (Answers Corporation). His remarkable genius include “a dress inspired by a dress-form” (Informat Incorporated), notably a revolutionary design in his “Flat Collection” that transported sleeves and armholes to the front, allowing garments to “lie perfectly flat when not worn” (Art and Culture); a photo print of a life size leather jacket on a t-shirt; and a women’s glove to be worn as a handbag” (Infomat Incorporated).
His pieces ranged from sprayed garments with mold and were showcased in a dark, dank corridor to a tamer trademark recycling of dress forms (Mercante). Despite his eccentric designs and revolutionary pieces, Margiela is highly skilled tailor who is very attentive to detail. Specifically, his jackets, with ripped-out sleeves are fabulously made; his preference on juxtaposing “fragility with hardness” and “structured shapes with softness.”
These juxtapositions are displayed in the wide variety of fabrics he uses, like “recycled flea market finds of antique tulle mixed with floral patchwork. ” Furthermore, he has also made wonderful works of art from unusual materials such as plastic bags, (Designer History), porcelain, playing cards, gaffer tape, hand gloves, and heats (Designboom). With his deconstruction abilities, he is able to create new and fantabulous pieces from old and existing ones.
Moreover, he created a collection composed of clothes “made from lining material with seams on the outside” in 1990; he used some “50's ball gowns overdyed in grey worn with old jeans” in 1991; he created “aprons and tops from old headscarves” in 1992; he “reconstructed stage costumes” in his Spring/Summer collection while he utilized 40’s cut-up costumes in his Autumn/Winter collection in 1993 (Designer History); he made “crepe garments printed with images of fur coats and heavy sweaters in his 1996 Photoprint Collection (Art and Culture); he had his first solo exhibition in Rotterdam, a joint exhibition in Paris with Japanese deconstructionist designer Rei Kawakubo of Commes des Garcons, and was hired by Hermes to design women’s ready-to-wear line in 1997 (Designer History); he teamed up with Belgians “Dries Van Noten, Lieve Van Gorp, Oliver Theyskens, Ann Demeulemeester, A. F. Vandevorst (a team made up of An Vandevorst and Filip Arickx), Dirk Van Saene, Jurgi Persoons, Veronique Branquinho, and Walter Van Beirendonck” for a momentous and innovative exhibition called “Belgian Fashion Design: Antwerp Style” in 2000 (Mercante); he showcased a renewed sense of elegance and luxury, “exploring romance, lace and boudoir drapes” in his Spring/Summer 2003 collection at the Paris Fashion Week in 2002; he continued making “unconventionally beautiful clothes” – tailored pinstriped jacket “with a suit sleeve turned into a collar” and a tweed skirt inserted with lingerie silk at the hips with his Fall/Winter Collection in 2003; and he used black and white, with dashes of pale sky blue, dark chocolate or oyster gray in Paris Fashion Week in 2003, after leaving Hermes to concentrate on his own label (Designer History).
Furthermore, Margiela’s color palette is dominated by powerful colors of black, white, and red, as displayed not only in his collections but also in his shows and his atelier (Answers Corporation).
He is actually distinguished for always putting on a show (Art and Culture), some of which have been uniquely showcased on “tube platforms and street corners” (Victoria and Albert Museum); on “vacant lots and old subway cars as runways, his models being marionettes and hangers (Art and Culture); in an abandoned lot of a poor Paris immigrant neighborhood, “with local children dancing down the improvised catwalk along with the models;” in a Salvation Army hall, at the edge of the Paris; and “at the edge of a cemetery. ” In addition, his studio is a display of his masterpiece, as graffiti beautifies the walls, the floors covered with old magazine and newspaper articles of reviews of his collections (Answers Corporation). Writer Suzy Menkes described Margiela’s Paris store that opened in 2002 as the hip, all-white store, adorned “with gargantuan chairs, shrouded chandelier,” wine bottle table lamps, and “vintage handbags covered with black or white cotton covers. ”
According to his associates who are famously known to be dressed in white lab coats, Margiela regards himself “a philosopher of fashion” (The New York Times). In fact, popular designer Marc Jacobs never denied being influenced by Margiela (Rubin). In 2002, Renzo Rosso, Italian company Diesel Group’s owner, bought Margiela’s company, thus, Margiela was able to expand his business (Rubin). With Diesel in his assistance, Margiela has defined his style by “encircling necks and arms above tailored pantsuits and white dresses” and expanded his jewelry line, which included new color palettes of “mauve, turquoise, and cherry red” (Designer History). Today, with his Spring 2008 Ready-to-Wear Collection, he displays “bodies, bandeau tubes, tight graphic stripes.”
His new garments are “part swim, part foundation,” with armbands and some trompe l’oeil bicolored stocking-legging to match. Furthermore, he came up with a unique way of layering fluidity by creating “flyaway, cutaway pieces to shrug over shoulders, or skirts that were short in front and long in back” or vice versa. In addition, he incorporated “vestigial” accessories in his collection, such as dresses with shoulder bags implanted in the armpit and “3-D fabric buckles standing in place of belts” (Mower). Despite his popularity, Margiela remains to be refuse media exposure, with preference not to become a public fashion personality” (Answers Corporation) but letting his authentic and unique designs speak for themselves.
