1　Margiela didn’t start out making only “Margiela” from the beginning

This point is surprisingly important.

Margiela’s first major hands-on experience came as a few years working as an assistant to Jean-Paul Gaultier. In later retrospectives, it is emphasized that during this period he honed the basics of cutting and draping. Later, even if Margiela’s work seemed on the surface to be “breaking,” “distorting,” or “turning inside out,” there was a very strong garment-making backbone underlying it.

Furthermore, the most important work he did outside of “Margiela” was at Hermès.

From 1997 to 2003, Martin Margiela served as the artistic director of women’s ready-to-wear at Hermès. What is interesting is that, in contrast to his widely known radical image, at Hermès he presented clothes that were quiet, functional, and almost modest. Yet within that modesty, reconstruction and usability, and wardrobe continuity remained intact—the essence of his approach.

ここで分かるのは、マルジェラという人が、単に“壊す人”ではなかったということです。

Before breaking, he understood the structure; before removing, he knew the function; he could handle both avant-garde and quiet. This is why, whether at his own named Maison or at Hermès, he could pursue the same philosophy at entirely different temperatures.

2　 Margielaが“Margiela”に込めた意義

彼が作ったのは、服だけではなく「ブランドの距離感」だった

The maison that began in 1988 had already adopted a certain distance from luxury conventions.
As the Maison Margiela official site still shows today, this house has identity, conceptualism, and minimalism at its core, and since Spring/Summer 1989 it has cultivated its brand language with the “the four white stitches”, a plain white label, and anonymous classification by numbers. Rather than logos meant to be shown off, the brand established itself as a mark understood only by those who understand it; looking back now, that is quite avant-garde.

This anonymity was not merely about creating a character.

Margiela himself kept his face hidden for a long time and did not appear at press conferences or post-show “usual greetings.” Reuters has noted that he rarely showed his face and preferred written interviews. In other words, what he wanted to erase was a structure in which the designer’s personality is over-foregrounded behind the clothes. He tried to return the brand’s center to the observation of the clothes themselves, rather than the myth of the creator. That stance influenced many designers and brands that followed.

The famous tabi also follows from that line of thought.

According to the Maison’s official description, tabi appeared in the first show in 1988, drawing inspiration from Japanese tabi socks, leaving red-painted footprints on the white runway. This wasn’t merely a flamboyant shoe; it was a device that turned walking itself into an image. A very Margiela-like idea, turning clothing from something to be seen into something that leaves traces.

In other words, the significance Margiela imbued in the Maison was not limited to reconstruction or destruction.
The brand can be more anonymous, the garments more unfinished, and luxury more understated. He turned such values into a viable business.

3　では、なぜ彼は一線を退いたのか

ここは“神秘的に消えた”で済ませないほうがいい

Margiela left his own Maison in 2009.

However, treating this departure as merely a mythical disappearance would be a bit careless.

Looking back at later documentaries, Margiela himself reflects that he could not adapt to the fashion industry’s system like Jean-Paul Gaultier did. A Vogue article also suggests that the tension between corporate demands and his personal creative drive underpinned his departure. In other words, it’s closer to understanding that he withdrew not simply because he was tired, but because he distance himself from a system that didn’t suit him.

This is quite instructive for today as well.
Today’s fashion places heavy demands on individual designers through the sheer number of collections, the speed of social media, and the visibility of personalities. In that light, Margiela’s departure may have been less a case of the eccentric choosing to quit and more a precursor to today’s fashion system.

4　それでも、マルタン本人の息遣いはなぜ残り続けるのか

Even after Margiela left, the maison’s codes remained.

The four stitches, the numeric labels, the tabi. This is not merely the maintenance of icons; it means the brand’s grammar itself became institutionalized beyond the individual. The Maison’s official description still centers on these as core codes, evidence of this fact.

Moreover, interestingly, that breath does not stay confined within the Maison.

Reconstruction, anonymity, the reuse of vintage and ready-made, and a sense of bringing outward things like tags, linings, and seams—things that are originally internal—out into the open. This way of thinking has now permeated fashion as a single aesthetic. Even though the person did not show his face, the very outline of his ideas remains vividly. This is where Margiela’s unusual strength lies.

Moreover, he did not vanish completely after 2009. In a 2019 documentary, he speaks about the past in his own voice, and since 2021 his activities as an artist have been widely reported.

5　では、マルジェラ以後のファッションはどこへ向かうのか

ここは予言ではなく、彼が残した問いから考えたい

Since Margiela, fashion has moved in at least two directions. One is that brands increasingly require stronger storytelling. The other is a move back toward quiet values such as anonymity, craft, repair and reuse, and reinterpreting past clothes.

This latter current casts a strong Margiela shadow. As today’s fashion talks about archives, values reconstruction, and questions the brand’s “essence,” the concerns he raised from the late 1980s to the 1990s still breathe.

If future fashion reevaluates not just novelty or hype but “what to keep, what to cut, and how far to foreground the individual,” that discussion will likely return to Margiela’s points many times. His work is both a historical archive and a method for editing the future.