You Can Now Watch the New Documentary About Martin Margiela in Full

The Tribeca-selected short titled "The Artist is Absent" takes a look at the elusive persona of Martin Margiela.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Thanks to the long arm of social media, it is now pretty common for fashion designers to attain celebrity-like status. Everything from their hobbies to their personal relationships to their eccentricities are put on display for all the world to see. However, there is one particular artist who has never sacrificed his private life in the interest of building his personal brand: Martin Margiela.

Throughout his career, the enigmatic designer has dodged the spotlight. Even his design team remained relatively anonymous during his reign, all because he wanted the focus to be on his clothes. But, apparently, his decision to work behind the scenes has propelled others to finally unveil the man behind the name.

In a Tribeca-selected short, called The Artist is Absent, fellow designers and colleagues of Margiela are interviewed to discuss his legacy and his reclusive nature. Industry heavy-hitters like Raf Simons, Jean Paul Gaultier, and Suzy Menkes, reveal their experiences with the Belgium-born creative and give some killer anecdotes about his early work, family life, and how his personality reflected his unparalleled vision.

“By not showing his identity, I think that Martin Margiela became more exciting, people wondered what he was like, there was a mystery that surrounded him,” Menkes says in the documentary.

Others echoed her thoughts, explaining that his privacy was yet another way he went against the grain—never becoming accessible to the public while so many of his contemporaries became more and more visible in the media.

Though, to no one’s surprise, Margiela was not interviewed for this Yoox-produced film, we are given some deep insight to the mind behind the legendary fashion house. You can check out the full documentary above. 

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