Solving The Many Mysteries Of Margiela

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Complex Original

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Maison Margiela is the one truly enigmatic fashion house. It has signature styles, a seemingly random numbering system to its collections and the face of its legendary founder, Martin Margiela, has been seen by only a select few people in the world. The brand uses a distinct 0-23 numbering system to classify its collections. If you've ever wondered what the fuck the difference between Margiela's 11 and 22 line happened to be, Oki-Ni broke some of it down and also explained the brand's use of white and its iconic four stitches label.

On every Margiela label, the collection number is circled. In essence, the lines 10-14 represent the men's collections, 14 being the "wardrobe" line that encompasses mostly staple pieces like shirts and sweaters. 11 is the brand's accessories—belts, leather goods, bags, jewelry—while number 22 stands for all of the brand's shoes aka everybody's favorite aka Replicas aka GATs. The color white? It expresses the "pure and unified" ethos of the brand—all of its atelier staff wear a standard issue stark white lab coat, the idea being that the many voices all work towards one, singular goal. Those four stitches on Margiela's tags apparently align the wearer with the garment rather than the label itself.

It's cool to unwrap some of the mystery behind a meticulously guarded favorite and is just one piece of the puzzle to understanding the larger Margiela universe. If you want to go even more in-depth and learn more about the brand than you learned about yourself on your most recent walkabout, Third Looks put together what is essentially the A-Z of the brand a while back.

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