The auction of Martin Margiela’s personal archive of his garment designs, prototypes, sketches and personal objects in Paris on 9 July is unprecedented. The Belgian former fashion designer retired from fashion in 2009, and yet his work and anonymity have created an obsessive mystique around his name. One of the most influential designers of the past 50 years, he had a minimalist and deconstructionist approach to fashion that was considered revolutionary. Even the preview of the sale, held at a secret location to be revealed in June, is likely to be one of the most anticipated exhibitions of the year.
The auction includes pieces such as Margiela’s ‘Blouse Blanche’ © Martin Margiela
“This isn’t about someone who bought something, kept it and sold it to make money,” says Salomé Pirson, co-founder of Maurice Auction, which is coordinating the event along with Kerry Taylor Auctions in London. “It’s about a personal archive.”
Born in 1957 in Genk, Margiela trained at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp before joining Jean Paul Gaultier’s studio as an assistant in 1984. He launched his eponymous label in 1988 and was hailed as an iconoclast. He presented deconstruction as the future of fashion, veiled his models’ faces on the runway, and labelled his garments with a white rectangle with four corner stitches that became a visual shorthand for his brand. Between 1997 and 2003 he was artistic director at Hermès, where he brought his avant-garde sensibilities into sober luxury.
