Martin Margiela leaves the house

Women’s Wear Daily reports that Martin Margiela is leaving the Paris-based fashion house that bears his name and no successor will be named.

“We want to stay avant-garde, and provocative, but without a new creative director,” said Giovanni Pungetti, chief executive officer of Maison Martin Margiela. It was mentioned that Margiela “has recently poured creative energies into painting and wished to walk away from the fashion business.”

“We came to the conclusion that we didn’t want to substitute [Martin], not because he is irreplaceable, but because we are the Maison Martin Margiela,” Pungetti said in the WWD article. “He always liked to say to his design team, ‘You are more Margiela than me.”

In a fame-obsessed business, Margiela was known for being so avant-garde that he never showed his face to his fashion devotees. Rather than flaunting an in-your-face logo, the Margiela signature is the basted white threads that show on the other side of his label.

I am quite the Margiela fan and love the edgy yet classic aesthetic of his designs. After years of finally successfully having both the shoe repair and the cleaner understand that the white threads poking out of the back of my boots and clothes are not a mistake, now this. It’s the dreariest news since the real Helmut Lang left Helmut Lang.

Bonne chance!

 

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