Maison Margiela Ends When John Galliano Leaves

Galliano has brought the house, his home, into its final age

This article is the second part in my two-part series about Martin Margiela and his brand, Maison Margiela. This one picks up where the other left off, so you might want to read the first article before this. You can find it here.

It is About More Than Just Clothes

Most all articles, essays, and journalistic and expository content produced about the Maison Margiela fashion house focuses on its “golden years,” that is, the formative time of the brand when it was headed by Martin Margiela, the brand’s creator. This is for good reason, Mr. Margiela was a revolutionary who among defining the course and taste of the brand, in many ways, did the same for the fashion world around him. I fully understand the fixation and fascination with Mr. Margiela, and am myself apart of the fanaticism. I do not think that the world and culture of style will really ever “get over” Mr. Margiela’s influence on it.

However all of this makes me equally as sad, as I seldom if ever see the same energy and enthusiasm directed towards focusing on the brand’s “contemporary years,” from 2014 to present day, the period where John Galliano lead (and is leading) the house. I believe that Galliano’s efforts and accomplishments are often looked-over and brushed aside. The contemporary period of Maison Margiela ought to be recognized, and John Galliano, appreciated. Being in the fashion industry is a tiring and draining job, and it is obvious that Mr. Galliano does not need the money and is only in this position because he wants to be there. When he does eventually lay down the reigns, in many ways, the house of Maison Margiela ends.

Martin Margiela and the Original Vision

Martin Margiela, after twenty years, left his brand because he was never meant for the world of fashion, and eventually it broke him. Mr. Margiela approached his work more “artistically” and “conceptually” than any other designer ever seen before. It was obvious that no part of him wanted to match the bourgeois flashiness and pompousness of his time. Mr. Margiela’s method of fashion design did not take commerciality into consideration. But you cannot survive in the fashion world if you do not put money making as the chief concern. But Margiela did not care about money. He thought that he would be able to exist outside of this part of the industry, and be the artist in the room of marketers. But, at the end of the day, the fashion industry is just that, it is an industry. It was this inability to take on the double burden of commerciality and conceptuality that broke Mr. Margiela down. It tore him apart, and he could not do his job anymore. He wanted to exist as an artist, not as an artist foremost, but as an artist wholly. The fashion industry did not allow him to do this. So he moved on.

This does not mean that Mr. Margiela failed, because he did the exact opposite. He never wanted his brand to be a Prada, or a Gucci, or even a Saint Laurent (although as a child he initially drew inspiration from the designs of YSL). He always knew that he wanted to exist outside of that world, and so it is wrong to judge Margiela against those other houses. The term “avant-grade” is awful and pretentious, but in the purest and most original denotation of the word, that is exactly what he was doing and creating. His affects, just like his brand, were more conceptual in nature. He forced the culture around him to think harder, to realize more, and to act differently. I think he led the effort to reject the pretentiousness of “high fashion,” and to embrace, well, whatever we wanted to do. He led the effort to reframe style in terms of meaning, concepts, and artistic value, instead of how it conforms to codes of excess, flashiness, and materialism. It was this, that made him quit fashion. Because the fashion world would never and could never be this way.

But what does all of this have to do with John Galliano. I have preset Margiela’s history and legacy, both for his brand and within the wider culture. I want to use all of this as a benchmark to help make the case for how perfectly and almost idealistically Mr. Galliano matches up and follows through.

John Galliano For a New Age

It is clear that if Mr. Margiela stayed leading his house, one of two things would have happened. The brand would have shut down (which is unlikely, because its parent company would have never allowed that) or it would have mutated into something that Margiela would have never wanted, and it would lose all meaning and value and just turn into “another fashion brand.” Neither option was ideal. John Galliano was able to escape this dichotomy because he was able to include and balance commerciality with artistic conceptualization, he was able to kindle and sustain the original taste and meaning of Mr. Margiela and the house’s vision, while keeping with the desires and necessities of the fashion industry. In a sense, tackling the double burden that Mr. Margiela was unwilling to do. When Margiela left and the house was looking for a new creative director, a new head designer to lead and drive the ship, many were initially skeptical of Mr. Galliano. He had just come out of controversy and lawsuits, and there was a possibility of those things tainting whatever work he would do. There were others saying that he does not understand the vision of Maison Margiela, and that him coming from Dior was him coming from the world that Margiela was supposed to reject. It did seem odd that the anti-personality and anti-celebrity brand chose one of the largest personalities and celebrities in fashion as its new leader. In retrospect, tapping Galliano was the best decision the house could have made for its future. He has proven himself as a man to please both the corporate management, and original attitude and taste of the house. He has perfected the “reject the fashion industry” and “we need to be a part of the fashion industry to survive” balance that has moved Maison Margiela’s position as a brand, making it more competitive and stronger than it ever was. He has carried on Margiela’s vision into a new time and has assured that, at least for now, the brand will not die nor it will dilute.

With the death of Karl Lagerfeld and Lee Alexander McQueen, Galliano remains one of the last “heavyweight” couturiers from the last two decades. Having been in fashion for so long, it is astonishing how he has remained so sharp and energized. I think that because Maison Margiela is an avant-grade house and has never tried nor wanted to be like anything or anyone else, it gives Galliano significantly more room to work with and frame his vision under. It is this, in my opinion, that keeps him going. Because of how long Galliano has been under the “conventional” norms and structure of the fashion world (think Dior), he probably would not be able to do that anymore, and would not get true artistic drive from it. I think Maison Margiela needed Galliano just as much as Galliano needed Maison Margiela.

Becoming More Than Just Art

One of the first things that Galliano did when becoming head of the house was recognizing that although the brand was existing outside of the fashion world, it needed to exist in (or at least start to move towards) the fashion industry. What I am trying to say is that Galliano made the house competitive and strong, both of which helped it tackle the changing and harshening times, times that have made giants like Burberry and Bottega Veneta restructure and redirect in order to stay alive. I am beating around the bush even more, but I will say the obvious, Maison Margiela needed to care more about making a profit and adding commerciality into their purview. They needed to appeal to not just fashion enthusiasts, but the bourgeois that Martin Margiela despised oh so long ago. The types of people who go shopping for Prada, Gucci, and Balenciaga needed to go shopping for Prada, Gucci, Balenciaga, and Maison Margiela. The house needed to associate itself with that “level” and sensibility, even if that was so different from itself.

This is a hard task to accomplish. You might think that with the brand power and might that the house had, it should be a piece of cake for Galliano to move Maison Margiela into this space. You would be terribly wrong. It would have been easy for Galliano to just plaster the words “MASION MARGIELA PARIS” on all items (and do not get me wrong, he did that with some items). However, this would have been a punch in the face to Martin Margiela, who despised branding. The brand power of Maison Margiela comes in its attitude to reject branding. It was the original and defining vision of the house to be brand-less in the sense that its identity was more than just a namesake. This is why Martin Margiela was completely anonymous and absent from the public side of the house. Maison Margiela’s power is in its rejection of a personality, this is what makes it different than the rest of the fashion world. To introduce branding in this way would have been to destroy the house. But if Margiela cannot brand itself, how can it sell to people who only care about branding?

The answer is to make design its branding: to make items so “Margielan” that they embody the house just like branding would (if not more so). Since fashion companies make most of their money from selling accessories, the quickest way to get Maison Margiela into the hands of many is to work with bags or shoes. But with bags, typically only women buy them, and are thus they are not as profitable with men (isolating a huge potential cliental). With shoes, however, you can market to both men and women. Enter the Tabi and Replica lines. Let’s talk about Tabi first. Even if you do not recognize the name, you recognize the design. Tabi is the name of the split-toe shoes created by Martin Margiela and launched in his first collection. They are an embodiment of the house, probably more so than even the name Maison Margiela. The design comes from traditional Japanese split-toe socks — said to be better for circulation in your feet. They were featured in MoMA’s exhibit, Items: Is Fashion Modern?, which showcased fashion items that have defined modern culture.

What Galliano did with the Tabi design was reinterpret it to suit a contemporary aesthetic. He turned the previously only women's boot design into a line of its own. He made Tabi sneakers and shoes in a host of single color and color block designs, alluding to a more luxury and avant-grade Vans. But Tabis did not just turn into sneakers, the Tabi design was captured into dress shows, slip-on sandals, loafers, and more. With this reinterpretation, Galliano successfully made Tabis not only acceptable in the mainstream, but also desperately wanted. Tabis became something that people wanted to buy, and buy over other competitive shoes like those made by Balenciaga and Gucci. The Tabi was able to escape its frame of being locked into an avant-grade occult. It went to being a design that the mainstream hyped. All the while keeping the Tabi unbreakably Margielan, branding itself without using a single word.

The next thing Galliano did was work on building a new line of shoes, the Replica line of shoes. Margiela’s “Replica line” of items always confuses people. To be clear, this line is not knockoffs but was based on reinterpreting popular, if not successful, items from past collections. The key, just like with Tabi, was that Galliano’s reinterpretation always followed modern sensibilities. The Replica line, for reasons that even I am not fully certain about, became astonishingly popular. It was quickly sported by celebrities, actors, musicians, and a mass of other influencers. It too, quickly (and probably even more so than the Tabi) became desired by the mainstream. It was surprising that, in a world of flashy, gaudy shoes, just how popular Margiela’s understated and almost banal shoe would be. Although the shoe never sported any significant or noticeable branding, it was branded. The Replica line was Margiela and vice versa. A significant feat no matter how you slice it. Call it snobbery if you would like, but the power of the Margiela brand was not a logo or even a name, it was designs that casually whispered, “if you know, you know.”

These designs, and a few other lines of bags and purses that I did not talk about were monumental in making Margiela competitive. Galliano has also since worked with brands like Reebok and Highsnobiety, co-creating wildly popular collections that have put Margiela at the foreground of “modern cool.” Leaving status aside and only addressing branding, a Supreme box-logo shirt, and a Gucci logo-printed sweater, and a pair of Maison Margiela Replica shoes all are able to convey to you what brand lies behind them. But it is the genius of Galliano for not only getting those shoes into that same space, but also doing so without using any words.

A Deconstructed Vision

It is remarkable that Margiela was able to become competitive in this way within the fashion industry. What is even more remarkable is that all of this happened while Galliano was maintaining that double burden, that balance between art and commerciality. He had figured out the commercial side, no doubt his experience from years in the industry came to great assistance. However, it was his ability to do that while still keeping Maison Margiela a brand that people hated and were disgusted by, a brand that was unabashedly derived from a place of challenging conceptuality and artistry, that made Galliano Martin Margiela’s perfect continuation. Galliano was not working for the house, he was chez Maison Margiela.

If you watch any recent runway show for a collection from the house, especially the co-ed or artisanal collections, you will see how utterly ugly, unpleasant, and hideous the clothes are. But that line of thinking misses one key detail, these are not the clothes that they sell, nor even the clothes that they advertise. That would be pointless, you can see those designs on their website or in a store. This is no Prada nor is it a Gucci, Margiela has always maintained a chief goal to be in existence outside of the realm of fashion, and that includes bypassing and rejecting the normative sensibilities of that world. The runway shows are meant to be treated as artistic and wholly conceptual in nature. They are framed within the vocabulary of Margiela’s world, nobody else’s. A quote from one of the co-ed Summer 2019 show notes, “A desire to break free from binary stigmatisation motivates the detection of genderless wardrobe staples: the overcoat, the caban, the cape. In contrast, classically gender-specific garments are mutinied through transformative deconstruction. It materialises in figurative ways of cutting, expressed in a constant search for truth amid the curated imagery with which we surround ourselves.” This is what Margiela is trying to build, clothes coded for conceptualization and meaning, not for fashion or aesthetics. “Cementing a house code, décortiqué — the reduction of a garment to its core — is exercised in outerwear similarly alluding to the memory of traditional items of clothing,” quoted from the ‘Défilé’ Autumn-Winter 2018 show notes. These shows are not made to be pleasant, they are made to make you think.

To do anything else with the runway shows would be to break from Martin Margiela’s vision of artistry and conceptualization that exists outside of and disregards fashion. To do nothing else would mean bankruptcy and an end for the brand. It is Galliano’s consideration to fulfill both duties, art and commerciality, that makes Maison Margiela a brand like no other. John Galliano’s vision is not a reinterpretation of Martin Margiela’s vision, it is merely a different hue. Fundamentally, Maison Margiela ends when John Galliano Leaves.