Martin Margiela Speaks
Image: © Marina Faust - poster AW 1995-96 and SS 1996, Maison Margiela.
A new film, Martin Margiela: In His Own Words, is an intimate portrait of fashion’s most elusive designer. For the first time, the "Banksy of fashion" reveals his drawings, notes and personal items, giving insights into his vision and career. Margiela is one of the most influential fashion designers of his time, delivering 41 provocative collections over 20 years. From Jean Paul Gaultier's assistant to creative director at Hermes to leading his own brand, no public photos of Margiela existed until 2008. The documentary is directed by Reiner Holzemer, whose previous subjects have included Dries Van Noten and Juergen Teller.
Image: Spring Summer 2009 collection exhibited at Palais Galliera Paris.
Margiela, born 1957, Belgium, graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Antwerp) in 1979, a year before the Avant-garde fashion collective the Antwerp Six. Between 1985 and 1987 he worked for Jean Paul Gaultier, before showing his first collection under his own label Maison Martin Margiela, which he started with his business partner Jenny Meirens in 1989. Margiela is famous for redesigning by hand objects such as old wigs, ceramics, canvases and silk scarves into couture garments, revolting against the luxurious fashion world with deconstructed garments of oversized proportions such as long arms, and with linings, seams and hems on the outside. To maintain anonymity all media contact for the label was dealt with via fax. Discretion was also a part of the brand, Maison Margiela's trademark consists of a piece of cloth with the numbers 0-23 and four small stitches visible from the outside. A 2008 article from the New York Times gave many in the fashion world their first glimpse of Margiela's face then in 2009 a press release announced that Margiela had left his label.
Image: The Tattoo top - Spring Summer 1989 collection.
The film features interviews with, among others, Jean Paul Gaultier, Carine Roitfeld, Trend Forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort, Fashion Critic Cathy Horyn and Fashion Historian Olivier Saillard. It is already one of Dogwoof films best-selling fashion documentaries.
For more information and to watch, visit www.martinmargielafilm.co.uk