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.