Summary:
- Glenn Martens debuts his first co-ed ready-to-wear collection for Maison Margiela SS26 with bold new tailoring approaches
- The collection introduces distinctive shoulder construction and elongated silhouettes through drop crotch trousers
- Martens references house codes through plasticized materials, vintage lingerie, and upcycled elements
A children's orchestra opened the show. The young musicians wore oversized black suits and performed classical works by Strauss, Tchaikovsky, and Mozart. Their occasional wrong notes added charm to the performance.
Glenn Martens took a different approach with his collection. The designer works to build his own vocabulary at Maison Margiela through specific cuts, finishes, and design choices.
His tailoring set the tone. The opening look featured a collarless leather coat fastened with ties, paired with leather jeans. The coat drew inspiration from the blouse blanche, the white garment worn by all house staff. The front borrowed from tuxedo waistcoat construction while introducing a new shoulder shape. This shoulder featured sharp rounding with a dart, and an armhole following the natural socket line. The same tuxedo front and shoulder appeared throughout the collection across men's and women's pieces in leather, wool, and denim. Previous designers at major houses created signature shoulder shapes. Martens follows this tradition, showing his focus on silhouette and tailoring's role at the house.
The designer stretched proportions through extremely low drop crotches on jeans and tailored trousers. The treatment made pants resemble skirts in length.
Martens interpreted house codes through his lens. Suits came wrapped in thin lining material, a fabric signature of Maison Margiela. Other pieces featured "plasticization" through what appeared to be masking tape on coats and lingerie dress bodices. Vintage costume jewelry received the same treatment, then got encrusted onto a top. Vintage lingerie slips were collaged onto tailored pieces. Elements from his debut Artisanal show translated to ready-to-wear through a peeling wallpaper print on knitwear.
Models wore mouth jewelry that held their lips in wide grimaces. The jewelry mimicked the four corner stitches found on Maison Margiela labels. This detail created uniformity across all models, referencing the house's tradition of anonymity. The gesture also served as branding.
The collection marks a shift in direction. After the romantic period under Galliano, Martens brings a more visceral approach. The aesthetic recalls the brand's early years, when it embraced grungy, upcycled, renegade style. Those were the days when Margiela defined cool.
The show runs 500 words and positions Martens as a designer building his own identity at the house. His approach respects Margiela's history while pushing forward with new ideas about proportion, construction, and materiality. The children's orchestra provided contrast to the serious fashion statement that followed.
Jade Nichole
Based in Berlin, I work as a fashion marketer and archivist, crafting thoughtful words and strategic narratives for screens, social feeds, and cultural moments. I have a passion for uncovering niche trends, internet nostalgia, and those unexpected sparks of creativity that often come at 3AM.
@jadedjuniper