GLENN MARTENS UNVEILS BOLD DEBUT AT MAISON MARGIELA HAUTE COUTURE 2025

If Martin Margiela was one thing, he was bold, daring, and unexpected, something Glenn Marten sought to embody at his first collection at the Margiela house during Haute Couture 2025 week. After Marten’s appointment back in January as the house’s third couturier, many questioned his couture capabilities given his commercial prowess during his time at Diesel (a position he still holds). However, Martens proved his depth of craftsmanship by showcasing a reconstructed take on Martin Margiela’s original imagery of the brand. 

With a line up that featured models wearing masks, plastic coverings that mirrored archival storage as a form of design, exaggerated lame and feather like mesh, and trompe l’oeil prints, Martens reflected Margiela’s traditional ethos of a masked identity and anonymity as tools of redirecting the focus of spectacle to craft, fabrication, and structure. These masks were a reference to earlier Margiela shows like Spring/Summer1989 (the maison’s debut) and Fall/Winter 1998, with shows usually ending without a bow from the designer (a format Marten also emulated at the show). Amidst the barrage of references, the avant-garde designs centered on unusual materials like plastic bags, cellophane, PVC, foil and metal finishes, and heavily bejewelled pieces. 

Beyond the conversations surrounding his debut, another major discourse was the fatigue of nostalgia and hyper-referencing in design, particularly with the collection’s many allusions to earlier curations by its founder. A notable feature was Martin’s location for his final show (SS09) being the same venue as Glenn Marten’s first; however, a better lens of this is not mere citation but an ongoing transformation that prioritises progress over nostalgia.  

In a show that embodied opulence and austerity, Glenn Martens has already set the ground running for a series of unorthodox creations.