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‘Logo-less high fashion created from rags'
Martin Margiela is a mystery. You never see his face in photos and he never gives interviews. That depersonalisation can be traced back to 1988, when this Belgian designer presented his first collection in which clothes took centre stage. Maison Martin Margiela's conceptual designs are often created using deconstructed second-hand clothes or rags.
After graduating from Antwerp's Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 1979, lift Margiela (b. 1959) rode along with the success of the ‘Antwerp Six' (Dries Van Noten, Ann Demeulemeester and others), a group which proved that Milan and Paris are not the only progenitors of fashion talent. On completing his studies, Margiela worked as a design assistant to Jean Paul Gaultier in Paris for three years.
MMM produces innumerable women's, men's and accessory lines. The encircled number on a garment's label - from 0 to 23 - denotes the collection or special project to which it belongs.
From 1998 - when MMM presented its 20th collection - to 2004, Margiela designed women's collections for the luxury brand Hermès. Renzo Rosso (owner of Diesel) has been a majority shareholder in MMM since 2002.
Margiela's logo-less collections are sold around the world in eight completely white shops. The first MMM solo exhibition was staged at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam in 1997.