As the Maison Martin Margiela has been wont to do for recent seasons, they once again jumped headfirst into an intensive linear concept when dressing their woman for Fall Winter 2011. Divining their sole cause to the study of ‘a dress’, the maison reinterpreted the feminine staple in a myriad of concoctions – more often than not as coatdresses peeled off at the shoulder or down the back, revealing slices of rich colour in printed and patent leathers.

The long and streamlined silhouette was rendered unusually bulky in the choice of fabrics and ample textures – such as rabbit fur, shearling and thick velvet. A sensual open back or slinky opera gloves offset this awkward weight at times (it was sexy/sporty with crewneck pullovers rolled to the elbow), but cocooning twin-sets remained unforgiving. The trompe l’oeil mechanism (a signature of the house) was subtle yet prevalent, featuring in tunic dresses printed and embroidered with shadowy lingerie details, and a detached sole that floated beneath the foot of knee-length boots.

A particularly winning look was a leather biker jacket that fell into a knee-length dress, dotted with fine studs and worn with heavy knuckledusters – a blend of hard and soft harking to the rebellious glory days of the Maison.

All images courtesy of Uber & Kosher, Antwerp.

Hair: Paul Hanlon
Make-up: Hannah Murray and the M.A.C PRO team
Makeup provided by M.A.C Cosmetics
Music: Maison Martin Margiela with Joakim Bouaziz
Artistic direction: Maison Martin Margiela

Amidst the flurry of New York fashion week, the Maison Martin Margiela’s MM6 sub-line presented their brand new capsule line with hip New York retailer Opening Ceremony yesterday. Launching for Fall Winter 2011, the range includes both women’s apparel and accessories – with the keystone of the collection being the idea that nearly each piece can be transformed or reinterpreted. Based upon a 3-in-1 concept, select styles throughout the collection will transform into separately wearable garments. Inspired by the construction of a jacket with detachable lining, this is the core characteristic, broadening the collection into additional silhouettes.

A quilted leather coat embodied the concept (as did a faux fur version), worn as a full jacket or paired with nylon by way of zipping on or off – surely a functional design element, and a definite nod to Opening Ceremony’s playful nature. Stand-outs include the black or brown leather boots and legwarmers, and pieces shouting out the undeniable trend of red for fall.

Opening Ceremony’s Creative Director Humberto Leon said he had always been a fan of the MM6 line, because of “their subtle references to everyday clothing, with the qualities the Maison offers”. The capsule launches globally in September 2011 at Opening Ceremony locations and select Maison Martin Margiela partners worldwide.

Watch the collection’s stop-motion film exclusively on A BLOG curated by.
Courtesy of the Maison Martin Margiela.

Text by Kristopher Arden Houser, New York.

The Maison Martin Margiela advised all guests to arrive for the FW11 presentation at 9:30am sharp – contrary to their conventional menswear outings (that tended to run on perpetual loop all day). Maybe they’d asked a little much, as when the white-curtain swept across it seemed the models just weren’t ready.

In a disconcerting yet ingenious switch, Margiela had positioned their audience backstage to a phantom menswear show, inviting us as witnesses to the final laborious motions of hair, makeup and styling before the models lined up for their walk in an adjoining room. Video monitors displayed the ‘realtime’ show next door as muffled bass tones pumped through the walls - as Margiela extended their trompe l’oeil effect to the trick the ears as well as the eyes.

While the lab-coated Margiela staff kept busy with the boys on high rotation, we were left to appreciate slice-and-dice tailoring that combined rugged military and hunting details on precisely re-constructed coats, cropped trousers and utility jackets. One overcoat (above) came patched together from khaki army blankets and lined with an orange sleeping bag, while an overall was dissected and embroidered onto itself as a pair of cargo pants. Of the more elegant looks were blazers in dark checks, plum velvet or double-breasted navy wool worn over turtleneck knitwear, and grey-on-grey ensembles that blended cashmere suiting with zipped commando trousers. Shearling appeared in liberal doses as tonal stripes, linings and collars – complementing the moody palette of khaki, fawn, charcoal burgundy and navy. Pops of colour appeared as a quilted vermillion blouson and a slim indigo suit, or as an electric blue lining to a rugged overcoat (another sleeping bag!).

The first limited edition style will be on sale from World Aids Day (December 1st 2010) with the high-impact slogan translated into Japanese hiragana characters. The charity AIDS T-Shirt, which has been present in all Maison Martin Margiela collections since Fall/Winter 1994/1995, bears the slogan:

“THERE IS MORE ACTION TO BE DONE TO FIGHT AIDS THAN TO WEAR THIS T-SHIRT BUT IT’S A GOOD START.”

As the collective explains:

“When most T-shirts carry a slogan their message may be read from a distance… dialogue is not necessary. When this T-Shirt is worn it is no longer possible for others to read the text printed on it (most of the text is on the inside at the back of the V-neckline). A dialogue on HIV/AIDS is there encouraged once another asks the wearer to explain what is written on their T-Shirt.”

A percentage of the sales is donated to AIDES, a French organisation dedicated to fight the HIV virus and take care of patients living with HIV/AIDS. Since 1994,  170,000 T-shirts have been sold and brought a contribution of over 700,000 euros to ‘AIDES’.

www.aides.org
www.worldaidsday.org
www.maisonmartinmargiela.com

The tee shirt will be available at all Maison Martin Margiela stores from December 1st.

A BLOG is happy to announce a new exhibition from contributing photographer & artist Marina Faust, in her hometown for Vienna ArtWeek. Marina’s theoretical approach to art practice requires the viewer to absorb much more than her raw, spare aesthetic – to look through her abstract objects in order to understand a challenging, critical exercise in empathy, timing, opinion & perspective.

Marina presents a series of several units entitled Shelf, containing 28 images. Shelf can be seen as an extension of the images hanging or leaning on the walls next to it. It as an image stock and allows the possibility to choose and exchange images as one wishes. Shelf is a transparent structure and therefore all images stocked in Shelf are seen from both sides, from their backs as well as from their fronts. The images are based on a collection of anonymous drawings of shoes, a technical imagery used as a recognition tool in the shoe industry. They are inkjetprint enlargements of various dimensions.

Shelf is Marina’s second outing at the Song Song gallery – a progressive space fostering the more obscure, artisanal links between fashion and art. Previously the gallery has hosted exhibitions by the Maison Martin Margiela & Dirk Van Saene, and will soon showcase the works of Walter Van Beirendonck.

As in her first exhibition with the gallery (wherein a group of second-hand chairs equipped with wheels for rolling at once asserted themselves as a total artwork, and refused to offer up any rules for engaging them as such) Shelf returns to the problematic boundary-zone of what constitutes a ‘state of art’.

This time the project addresses a moment in the object’s life that is not it’s ‘art’ moment, that is some place perhaps just before or after art, an off beat wherein the ways by which we identify the object are made unstable, called into question.

In Shelf, the frame (or apparatus of support) skews the object against the context, opening a rift in the space of the gallery through which another identity of the thing can be seen, equally true though not at all appropriate to the moment.

As much storage device as means of exhibition, Shelf uses the space of artworks as the platform for a question of what a before-art or after-art work is, of what an artwork becomes if it is in no position to be looked at.

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Vernissage for Vienna ArtWeek, 7pm on Tuesday November 16th, 2010.
Exhibition runs until 20th November, 2010.

Song Song is located at Praterstrasse 11 A-1020, Vienna.

www.marinafaust.com
www.songsong.at

In a somewhat cartoonish departure from last season‘s relative air of modern sophistication, Margiela showed a gamut of their classic styles – the trench, the 5-zip bomber, tuxedo jacket or a work shirt – apparently glued or vacuum-formed into a crisp, flat square tacked to the front of simple knit & jersey basics.  Feet sunk into the platform shape of a pump (from which the platform had been removed), and watches or jewellery pieces were worn as though still attached to their plastic box casings. Travel luggage was shrunk to clutch size, and the latest styles from their Cutler & Gross collaboration hung precariously on the edge of several ‘sandwich-board’ looks.

If anything, the show was a clear appraisal of the atelier’s technical prowess, on full display with the crisp structured shirting that traced a perfect slim woman’s arm inside the oversized sleeve, and trousers that extended a pleated front across the hips, folding back to hug the figure behind.

Outside, the brass band that serenaded attendees on the banks of the Seine under rainy clouds perfectly captured the off-kilter mood of the parade – full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Infamous for their ‘incognito’ concept of covert eyewear, the Maison Martin Margiela have just announced a lucrative new partnership with British spectacle maestros Cutler & Gross, to establish a new formula for their ongoing exploration and distortion of the codes of modern eyewear.

Fusing the playful spirits of the two houses, ‘Line 8′ eyewear collection will begin with two simple conceits:

1.  ‘anatomic’ – with an enlarged rounded shape enveloping the face to protect the full visual field.

2. ‘wrong size’ – a geometric play on lenses seemingly ill-fitting the frame.

Since its beginnings in 1988, the Maison Martin Margiela has always been keen on keeping the attention on its work and its creations in a way that the wearer does not distract such attention.
With ‘Line 8’, the Maison offers a new context for eyewear through a simple yet radical expression.

A BLOG curated by is proud to present an interview by contributing editor Filep Motwary, from his blog Un Nouveau Ideal, as he went head to head with the faceless Maison Martin Margiela earlier this year. Continue reading as Filep discusses sex, age, and other no-go areas with the house.

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Filep Motwary: 20 years of Martin Margiela. What was the goal of the House, when it first started out and how it has changed in comparison with today?
Maison Martin Margiela: We view our work as a proposition to wear what we feel at any given moment.

FM: How difficult it was for a Belgian brand to break into the Parisian bourgeoisie considering that the Margiela heroine is far from bourgeois?
MMM: At the beginning, it was just Martin and Jenny (Jenny Meirens was the co-founder of MMM) starting a company in Paris. Then, the team started to grow as the company developed. Today, Maison Martin Margiela is a team of more than 70 persons from 19 nationalities in Paris’ headquarters only. Does that make MMM a Belgian brand?

FM: Martin Margiela dresses in the past ten years evolved into something more than ready-to-wear. What motivated the team into conquering couture, menswear and design objects?
MMM: We leave the interpretation of our work to others. As for ‘couture’, we have always shown handmade garments as part of our ‘artisanal’ collection (line 0) where we rework/transform vintage and used garments of many varied époques to form unique pieces that are made available to our customers around the world. Though certainly not to be considered ‘haute-couture’ as it is understood today – our artisanal production can maintain certain crafts involved in the production of hand made individual garments that have been alive for many centuries and that are difficult to keep within the industrial methods of clothing manufacture today.
Over the years, all the other lines (please see our flyer as per attached) came naturally as a complement to the original ones as the company was developing.

FM: In the early years the brand tag on Margiela items was less visible than it is today. Could you please analyse the transformation and the importance of the signature visibility.
MMM: The four white stitches only appear on unlined garments. They were devised so as to, realistically and ideally, offer the option to those confronting the garments for the first time to react to their form and energy, and not just the idea of “brand” as expressed via a label. What most people consider as our logo – the four stitches in the back with the white label inside the garment – had in fact the opposite purpose: it was meant to be cut off so the garment would be without a label and logo! It has not changed at all except that before the label was completely white and with the creation of new lines, we added the numbers and circled the appropriate number of the line the garment is part of.

FM: Why is the Margiela team and boutique staff dressed in white?
MMM: Original idea: Unity. An expression of team. A reference to the working ‘Atelier’/Studio’s of the past and present, those ‘blouse d’essayage’ that models wear between fittings at couture Ateliers. Accidental plus point: A way of quickly recognising each other amid the fray of a fashion show. We approach white as an expression of our union as a team and also as an evidence of option, an option of expression, be that ours or that of those who choose to wear the clothes we propose.

FM: What is the philosophy of a MMM boutique?
MMM: That it represents as best it can the spirit of our work and home. We wish our shops bring an atmosphere of intimacy, calm, encouragement, stimulation and ease. We want that those who visit any of our stores feel as at home there as we do.
Though all spaces inhabited by the Maison share common themes, no two are alike in form, theme or decoration. Great care is taken to respect each building’s unique structure and original use. The atmosphere of each shop, adapted and decorated by Maison Martin Margiela, also draws on the prolific and iconographic use of whites – of furniture, objects, fabrics and textures, old and new – typical of the spirit of the Maison Martin Margiela’s Paris premises, a former school of industrial design. Furniture and architectural elements salvaged from shops and houses across the world are brought to build on the space’s personality.

FM: What has MMM achieved in its 20 years of existence?
MMM: You are in a better position to answer this question than we are.

FM: The Artisanal line brought a whole new chapter in Fashion, What was the main idea behind it?
MMM: Line 0 is Collection « Artisanal » for women & men. Since its beginnings in 1988, Maison Martin Margiela has been gathering garments, accessories, used and sometimes new objects across the globe. That these garments and objects may be given a second life whilst respecting and maintaining the traces of the passage of time and use remains one of the keystones of the creative expression of the Maison. Each garment is reworked entirely by hand in the atelier of the Maison in Paris. The complexity and specificity of each step of such a creative process of transformation will naturally limit the quantity of garments produced. The individuality of the materials used to create each garment ensures that each is as unique as that which was used to create it. The label, numbered 0, is sewn, embossed or stamped depending on the material used to create the garment or accessory.

FM: How important is for MMM to feel connected with its customers considering the fact that the House itself is a mystery?
MMM: Crucial! We hope that they are convinced that they can be completely ‘at one’ with a garment and be happy wearing it and that a garment can reply to the needs and emotions of the person wearing it is a beautiful thing. We are lucky enough to have a very wide group of men and women who wear our garments. From our point of view we have always paid particular attention to designing for as large a cross section of women and men as possible. We are lucky in that so many people of different ages, shapes, social role and background are following our work! For us femininity is all embracing and is not just limited to one body form or one attitude. Since our beginning our fashion shows have reflected this reality of our collections in that we have always chosen to show our collections on women of varying ages and from varying walks of life. We feel that we are lucky in that this approach is also reflected in those who wear our garments.

FM: To what extent is MMM connected to ART?
MMM: We prefer not to interpret our work, preferring to leave that up to others better placed to place our work in an overall context. We all have work that we love, though, possibly regrettably, as a team we have no real connection to the Art world.
Fashion is a craft, a technical know-how and not an art. Each world shares an expression through creativity though through very divergent media and processes.

FM:Paris radiates its own platform when it comes to fashion. Why is the city of light so relevantly fashionable?
MMM: At this stage, the inertia that this town has amassed over the years. An inertia that draws creativity and those attracted to it into its core. Yet Paris is not essentially different from any other great city ‘of personality’. It stands as itself in much and the same way as New York, London, etc. Almost a ‘brand’, its ‘branding’ is of a town that embraces a more individualistic creative expression. Those wishing to begin in fashion tend to start and show here because of the concentration of fashion professionals passing through town throughout the year (that inertia again!).

FM:Would the House wish to link again with another like the past connection you had with HERMES?
MMM: Such collaboration was a personal project of Martin Margiela, not of Maison Martin Margiela.

FM: Today there is a blossom of pseudo couture, a lot of designer get credibility without actually deserving it. Many faces come and go in a glimpse of an eye…Everything is moving so fast.. What does it take for a HOUSE to remain in charge in such times?
MMM: Courage and instinct.

FM: What are the differences between your men and women customers?
MMM: Gender!

FM: How is sex appealing in the MMM collections?
MMM: It is to others to interpret.

FM: Has MMM experienced relevant tragedies like the recent worlds financial crisis?
MMM: No

FM:MMM is a result of teamwork. How do new members enter the team and to what extent is the difficulty for a member to leave the House?
MMM: We suppose just as easy and/or difficult as in any other team. More generally, there are over 70 people at the Paris HQ. We often compare our way of working to the building of a wall: everyone brings a stone and eventually the wall is built. And everyone needs to bring the stone, otherwise the wall collapses. Everyone has a role within the team, but everyone also has a voice within that team… This is one of the reasons why Martin never appeared publicly, as we all know that if he would have, the light would have been on him, and without him in the light, the message would be different: the work is the collaboration of a team and not just about one single individual.

FM: What is the most valuable moment in the History of Fashion and why?
MMM: More often than not we are so close to our work it is genuinely impossible for us to define the ‘how or why’ and especially, experience tells us, to predict the ‘buttons it will push’ in those who are confronted by it. This is as true of the reaction any individual will have to a garment hanging in a store as it is for the professionals of our industry to a fashion show.

FM: What serves to inspire you the most?
MMM: Our main inspiration has always has been the extremities and changes of daily life. Our work is solely a proposition to wear what it is we like to create, a presentation of a way in which we see things at a given moment. As a team we all share so many interests and sources of inspiration, these are all very varied and would take far too long to list here. It is often hard to quantify or describe inspiration. It is often more by osmosis than an active decision. Each member of our team seeks to explore their own stimulation, be that visual or another. Such stimulation and dialogue varies in direction and importance for each of us.

FM:What are the morals of MMM?
MMM: Such notions are not part of our vocabulary.

FM: MMM suffers from a lack of self exposure. Does it happen out of modesty and if not, why is the House hidden in shade from the glossies?
MMM: Even though people tend to think we do not communicate, we feel we are. But we do not use any physical image of a designer to promote our work. If people are touched and like to wear what we propose they are free to buy and wear it. What our designer looks like has, for us, little or nothing to do with this process. We prefer that people react to a garment through their taste and own personal style and not their impression of the individual and group of people who created it as translated and hyped by the press. Unlike actors or singers we do not need any physical form to express our work.

FM: What is modern?
MMM: An abused notion that became meaningless…

FM: What is old?
MMM: Our headquarters’ building.

FM: How will MMM be on its 30th anniversary?
MMM: Let’s speak again in 2018.

FM: A final quote on SEX.
MMM: Sex is good.

Following the intimate presentation of the Fall Winter 2010-11 Line 0 Artisanal collection last week, we were able to take a short tour through the Maison Martin Margiela atelier in the 11th district of Paris. From the front desk to the terrace furniture everything is white-washed and imbued with all the subtle trademarks of the house – executed in a rough, haphazard way that seems anything but contrived.

In the atelier itself, guests were witness to the skeletons of half-finished toiles from mens and womens collections hanging behind our seats. Boxes of chains and other unusual materials from the artisanal collections lay alongside vintage denims and leather swatches. On top of a commanding white wardrobe, a transparent bust with a sharp horizontal shoulder sat alongside another scratched white body, and outside a window pane is inscribed with the signatures of the Margiela team. The baroque ‘trompe l’oeil’ adhesive door stickers are evident inside and out as is the most basic furniture, painted or loosely covered in white canvas.

Visiting this private world of the most gracious white-coated staff is the same as entering into any one of their stores. There is an obvious intent in the aesthetic, yet without strain or too much precision. Things are done for a reason, but not for grand notions of luxury or excess. Form and function work together, as the final purpose of the space is as a working studio. The Margiela HQ is existing proof that Martin Margiela worked with spaces in the same way he worked with clothes, laying bare the most fundamental and structural features and allowing them to become the highlights.

An anonymous house under a collective silence. A fashion brand hiding behind four white stitches. This was so at the Maison Martin Margiela for over two decades – swathed in white noise and covert operation. Today a part of this mystery was revealed, when editors were invited to the Margiela headquarters in Paris for an intimate presentation of the Fall Winter 2010-11 Line 0 <<Artisanal>> collection. Guided through the showroom and seated inside the designers’ atelier, small groups were privy to a private showing each hour – with ten unique silhouettes crafted in vintage leather and animal skins.

Always settling on an abstract theme, this season the specifics were on the materials – from calf, python, lizard and fox, to suedes, faux furs, textured and embossed leathers. With vintage handbags stitched into jackets or western boots layered into trousers, the playful ‘trompe l’oeil’ effects that mark a distinct Margiela signature were present, as were the minimalist body stockings and a simple stiletto shoe that provided a neutral base for the strict colour palette of browns and blacks. Each look was accessorised with the Margiela ‘incognito’ concept, this time translated as a band of fabric tied across the eyes.

As always the presentation is a chance for the atelier to exercise their most labour-intensive techniques (hence the very name “artisanal” to describe the collection) rather than the “made-to-measure” element that particularly signifies “couture”. Each garment is worked from scratch in the atelier, and documented in the press dossier by the number of hours they take to create. Clocking in at a phenomenal 116 hours work, the cowboy-boots jumpsuit (pictured below) was the longest in production, with butterfly and folk-patterned leatherwork embroidered onto a shirt, trousers and boots to become a leather overall. The construction of the fringed ‘scoubidou’ jacket was also a long process, with 67 hours to braid and knot strips of leather, suede, cotton and alcantara (a suede-like synthetic) into a dégradé bolero.

Ten times a door quietly opened and closed revealing a new model, and each girl twirled slowly in front of a makeshift white background of boarding and beveled doors. Fans revolved constantly to cool the room. Patterns and toiles lay around the work tables, and Stockman busts stood with masses of chain and other materials draped over them. A dress from last season’s show leaned in plastic wrapping in a corner.

It is, after all, a space where real people work – where real people work hard. Today’s presentation was nothing if not a reinforcement of this fact – the reality that with or without it’s namesake, the Maison Martin Margiela continues to strive for an intangible ‘freshness’. They know that ‘new ideas’ are few and far between. But changing how we see the old ones? Now that still has interesting potential.