In the lead up to the London edition of Maison Martin Margiela’s ’20′ exhibition at Somerset House, we offer a collection of historical images from the original exhibition at MoMu in Antwerp, Belgium. Bringing the exhibition to the UK is the original team of curator Kaat Debo and scenographer Bob Verhelst, Bob having worked with the Martin Margiela for many years on set design for shows and interiors for offices, stores and other projects of the Maison.

To accompany the images is an excerpt from the foreword of the original exhibition catalogue, written by Kaat Debo. Her concise explanation of the house is insightful and thought-provoking, and speaks a strong understanding of the house ethos and underlying mission.

“As young as Maison Martin Margiela’s history may be, no other fashion house has had quite the same impact on our conception of fashion and its underlying system, as well as our views regarding fashion and history, craft commerce, authorship and innovation. Maison Martin Margiela’s whole ouvre challenges conventional perceptions of authenticity, the body, fashion’s illusion that it can create a standardised ‘body’, fitted for the mass production of clothes, the opposition between ‘high’ and ‘low’ fashion, and the role of the designer.

What is so striking is the incredible freedom that Maison Martin Margiela allowed itself it its radical questioning and rethinking of the parameters that have determined fashion – both as an artistic and commercial entity- for over a century. And yet, this freedom was never an obstacle to the central positionthe house has continued to occupy within the field of fashion. The House of Margiela deliberately refrained from placing itself in the margins of the fashion system. Although its designs have often been mistaken for anti-fashion, it is not its intention to make tabula rasa of fashion history. The House’s philosophy is precisely informed by a procedure that refuses to be governed by the compulsive view that fashion should reinvent itself entirely every single season. Contrary to what is customary in fashion, the designs are not bound to trends or seesawing tendencies. Ideas or concepts from previous collections, as well as elements taken from collective fashion memory are continuously retrofitted into new collections. More often than not, collections reiterate a concept, body image, or technique that was introduced in a previous season.

From this perspective, the creations by Maison Martin Margiela are to be read as constituting a single extended continuum, where ideas and concepts are taken to their extreme in order to push creative horizons.” – Kaat Debo, 2008.

The exhibition opens to the public on Thursday June 3rd, 2010 in the Embankment Galleries, South Wing of Somerset House on the Strand, London.