Maison Margiela

Maison Martin Margiela was founded in Paris in 1988 by Belgian designer Martin Margiela, who had spent the previous three years as Jean Paul Gaultier's right hand. The first collection — shown in a Place des Vosges car park — established the brand's vocabulary in a single afternoon: deconstructed tailoring, exposed seams, reused materials (the brand made a coat from old socks, dresses from broken china, sweaters from butcher's gloves), the four white stitches on the back of each garment as a discreet brand mark, and Margiela's own refusal to be photographed or interviewed. Margiela ran the house as creative director until 2009, when he quietly stepped away from the brand and effectively from public fashion entirely. The OTB Group (Diesel's Renzo Rosso) had acquired a majority stake in 2002 and now runs the brand alongside Diesel, Marni, Jil Sander, and Viktor & Rolf. John Galliano was named creative director in 2014 — a controversial appointment given his 2011 antisemitic outburst at Dior, but artistically a tour de force. Galliano's Artisanal couture collections (the brand calls couture 'Artisanal') have been some of the most discussed shows of the past decade. Margiela himself remains in retirement, gives no interviews, and lives privately in Paris. The brand operates flagships in Paris (Rue Cassette), Milan, London, and Tokyo, plus the MM6 diffusion line. The four white stitches and the numbered-line system — 0 to 23, each a different category — remain unique in fashion. Few houses have generated such a coherent intellectual framework around what fashion's relationship to fabric, to anonymity, and to wearer participation could be.