fashion model standing still on the catwalk with her hands crossed, wearing metallic coloured beige dress and face mask embellished with swarovski stones

Haute Couture: Maison Margiela Artisanal Codes

Glenn Martens Recasts the Artisanal Codes at Paris Fashion Week

Maison Margiela returned to Paris Haute Couture Week with a potent new chapter: Glenn Martens’ debut Artisanal Collection. The show was staged in peeling, papered chambers. These chambers felt unearthed from a Flemish reliquary. It fused Margiela’s house grammar: deconstruction, re-purposing, anonymity. With Martens’ moody Northern European romanticism. The result was a riveting statement about craft, character, and time: couture as palimpsest.

front row guests viewing and filming with their mobile phones a catwalk model wearing a metallic silk gown and embellished face and head cover in rhinstones

The opening looks featured clear, sculpted sheaths. They read as blown-glass carapaces. Then came the procession of masked figures. Together, these elements set a cerebral tone for Martens. The plastic motif enclosed stiffly painted gowns. It featured equal parts “dry-cleaning bag” wit and vacuum-seal armor. There was a deliberate tension between protection and exposure. It nodded to Margiela’s archival provocations while asserting a modern, almost forensic interest in surface.

Black runway model wears a dress made of transparent clear plastic. Her face is cover with a plastic mask.

Key to Martens’ narrative was an excavation of Gothic and Low Countries imagery. He examined embossed 17th-century leather wallpapers extensively. He also studied Dutch still lifes, decayed draperies, and church statuary. He used these elements to build silhouettes that felt both sanctified and subversive. Metallized velvet fell in heavy, reliquary swags; lace appeared as fluttering cutouts, peeling from sheer dresses like frescoes shedding pigment. This was couture as archaeology, where what has been worn and weathered becomes newly worthy.

model on the runway wearing metallic gown, her face is covered with the same fabric.
fashion model walking the runway in oversized haute couture velvet gown
catwalk model presenting maison margiela collection at the paris fashion week

Silhouette was where Martens’ couture instinct glinted. Three spectral jersey gowns, caped and body-veiling, drifted past with sepulchral grace. Beneath, unusual corsetry jutted the hips. It lifted a busk at the front. This was an unmistakable bow to the theatrical engineering of Martens’ predecessor, John Galliano. This design was filtered through a cooler, Belgian sensibility. It was a canny bridge between chapters, proof that continuity can be daring.

catwalk model is walking the runway wearing sheer milky coloured dress with large stone jewellery
model posing in a beige transparent dress as she descends down the runway
model showcases silkly cream colour dress featuring 3d roses on the upper body

Context matters. Margiela’s official notes anchored the collection in the architectural statuary of Flanders and the Netherlands. They featured saintly figures and austere facades which translated into statuesque volumes. That geographic precision gave the fantasy its foundation. It distinguished the show from generic Gothicism and tied it to both Martin Margiela’s and Martens’ roots.

beautiful beige and cream coloured shiny organza outfit on the catwalk

For red-carpet pragmatists, there was plenty to covet. These include those metallized velvets. Other items were the razor-cut sheer columns edged with “peeling” lace. There were also structured coats with fresco textures. Yet the triumph lay in coherence. Martens didn’t just cosplay the archive. He truly metabolized it. He turned house tropes (masks, re-purposing, anonymity) into a language that feels immediate and collectible. Crucially, it also feels like his own.

by Olga Barrale