Glenn Martens revealed his first collection for Maison Margiela in July 2025. The couture show, a mix of metals and body illusions, marked a new era for the French luxury house. With each look, came a mask. Some were made of lace, others bronze or jewels. These masks, while covering the models, carried meaning deep within Margiela (p.s. they didn’t start with Martens).
Martin Came First
The creator of the house, Martin Margiela, showed his first collection in 1988. The show was presented for the Spring 1989 season and exuded a dark appeal. Models walked with messy up-dos and smudged makeup. The color palette was muted, focusing on red, black and cream.
The dim lighting of the room also added to the appeal. Everything in the show, from the set design to the pieces themselves, had an extended shadow. The darkness of the collection made Martin stand out, cementing him as a unique designer from the start.
The most notable feature of the collection was the masks. Sheer fabric covered a few of the models’ faces, stopping only to expose their necks. The hidden features of the models created an eerie feeling. One that disturbed critics but enticed fashion enthusiasts to want more.
One Mask, Many Iterations
Martin Margiela was the creative director of the house until 2009. After he resigned, there was no creative lead until 2014 when John Galliano took over. This left five years where a design team, unknown to the public, continued Martin’s legacy. The idea of an anonymous design team is not unheard of in the fashion world. If anything, the break added to Margiela’s mysterious appeal.
Above are two masks: one covered in red gems from the Artisanal A/W 2014 show, and one filled with metallic flowers from Fall Couture 2013. Both of these pieces were created by the anonymous group of artisans. Clearly, the level of detail in these requires expert-level skills.
Maison Margiela Artisanal 2025
In July 2025, Glenn Martens (also the creative director of Diesel) showed his vision for the iconic masks. A majority of them concealed the models’ faces, leaving no room for them to see out. These heavy coverings, made of gold and diamonds, recreated the anonymity from Martin’s first collection.
A few of the pieces revealed parts of the models’ features. These masks appeared like cellophane wrap or glass-blown figures. A stark contrast from the other pieces, the models appeared blurred as an illusion.
What are your thoughts on the masks? Let us know @VALLEYmag on Instagram!
Howdy would you mind letting me know which webhost you’re working with? I’ve loaded your blog in 3 different browsers and I must say this blog loads a lot faster then most. Can you recommend a good web hosting provider at a honest price? Kudos, I appreciate it!
I do not even know how I ended up here, but I thought this post was great. I don’t know who you are but certainly you’re going to a famous blogger if you are not already 😉 Cheers!
Real excellent visual appeal on this web site, I’d value it 10 10.
excellent points altogether, you just gained a new reader. What would you recommend about your post that you made a few days ago? Any positive?
Howdy just wanted to give you a quick heads up. The words in your post seem to be running off the screen in Firefox. I’m not sure if this is a formatting issue or something to do with web browser compatibility but I thought I’d post to let you know. The design look great though! Hope you get the issue resolved soon. Thanks
I love what you guys tend to be up too. Such clever work and exposure! Keep up the excellent works guys I’ve you guys to my blogroll.
Hi my friend! I want to say that this post is amazing, nice written and include approximately all vital infos. I’d like to see more posts like this.
Lovely just what I was looking for.Thanks to the author for taking his clock time on this one.
I love it when people come together and share opinions, great blog, keep it up.
An impressive share, I just given this onto a colleague who was doing a little analysis on this. And he in fact bought me breakfast because I found it for him.. smile. So let me reword that: Thnx for the treat! But yeah Thnkx for spending the time to discuss this, I feel strongly about it and love reading more on this topic. If possible, as you become expertise, would you mind updating your blog with more details? It is highly helpful for me. Big thumb up for this blog post!