Maison Martin Margiela is a fashion guru who changed in his way the way in which people perceived fashion. His works were made from recycled materials which made him be respected and be noticed fashion icon. In the last 20 years Maison Martin Margiela has redefined the scope of design creation by using recycled materials for his creations. In his d3signs Martin presented fierce fashion designs which were brilliantly created ideal to fit the description of most trendy fashion wear depending on the generation. Designs were made of vintage furnishings, Ice cube jewelry after being melted or trash bags.
What we know about Margiela can be pretty much summed up in a nutshell. Margiela was born April 9, 1957 in Genk, Belgium. During 1977 to 1979 Margiela studied fashion at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp where he graduated. In 1984 he went to Paris seeking to work as a fashion assistant. It was there he met with Jean Paul Gaultier and was hired as his assistant. Margiela worked for Gaultier during 1984 to 1987. In 1988 he founded his own fashion house, Maison Martin Margiela (MMM) with Jenny Meirens and presented his first collection. Ten years later he started his first menswear collection to his fashion house and named it Line 10. Margiela also spent a few years as chief designer at Hermes
His creativity in creation of trends was defined as epic as many designers wanted emulate his success story. In an argument by Wilson (par 6) Maison had an inborn passion for fashion which made him stand out from other designers. The author further argues that the he only wanted to do fashion without much indulgence of the media. For this reason, he has never as photo taken and he remained backstage during his shows.
One of his greatest impacts in the fashion industry was the fact that he recycled materials to generate his trade line products. This move made other designs to consider taking up the same strategy since it has a great market support. His recycled fashion wear was viewed charity since fashion magazines portrayed his creativeness as an environmental positive thing. Environment activists also graced his fashion shows with the passion of making other designers join the strategy that involves recycling products to create products (Walker, par 6). The author states that the significance of a business entities its greatly perceived by its ability to have positive impact in the community or the environment. The consumers market tends to greatly support environmental considerate organization; and this explains a lot the growth of the MMM fashion line.
Another unique thing that Maison brought to the fashion line was his ability to hand creates ornaments and makes beautiful creations out of small objects. Additionally, Maison employed the expertise of a Japanese designer who blended with his fashion taste and the Asian taste on fashion. According to Wilson (par 4) Maison redesigned most of the creations by his designers to suit his fashion statement. This showed how passionate and indented Maison was in creating a fashion house with his full identity and perception on fashion. This feature made him awarded in the first ever ANDAM fellowship in 1989 which is currently a very prestigious award in the fashion industry.
Menkes (par 4) points out that the strategy by Maison to hide his facial identity created a widespread interest from many customers and upcoming fashion loyalist. They gained interest in his works and his concealed identity made them even more interested in knowing the designer. However, the only way to understand Maison was through understanding his designs and creations.
His career was however discussed in the media as magazines and gazettes a predicting is downfall in the industry. According to Oxberry (par 5) Maison has achieved a lot in the fashion industry and he wanted to have a personal life away from the public limelight. For this reason, he looked for a manger replacement for the MMM line but he did not succeed. Both Raf Simmons and Haider Ackerman rejected the offer which made the public predict the downfall of the fashion line (Oxberry, par 5). Regardless of his failure in finding a replacement for the cloth line, Maison still wanted to vacate his head position at MMM. However, he did not a given a reason as to why he wanted to stay away from his company (Oxberry, par 4). His vacating of his position was not publicized since the public did not know much about his movements. The announcements was made public on October 2009 by the majority stakeholder of the MMM, Renzo Rasso. The majority stakeholder announced the fashion house has a new fashion crew on board and there will be no appointment of a new director (Oxberry, par 4). Additionally, Martin Margiela will continue to trade but reason behind the exit of Maison was not publicized. This change however did not change the success story behind MMM as it continues to be of great significance to the fashion industry.
Works cited
Menkes, Suzy. "Martin Margiela". The New York Times. Web. 6th September, 1994. Web
Oxberry, Eve. "Martin Margiela exits Margiela". DRAPERS / drapersonline.com. Web. 9TH December, 2009. Web
Walker, Harriet. "Out of sight, not out of mind: Celebrating two decades of Martin Margiela magic". The Independent. Web. 6TH Dec, 2009. Web
Wilson, Eric. "Fashion’s Invisible Man". The New York Times. Web. 1ST Oct, 2008. Web
