I skipped Paris Fashion Week this season, but I still managed to hear all the crazy stories. (Many thanks to my group chats.) My favorite had to do with a certain celebrity who skipped a fashion week party because she was afraid of potential ghosts. Apparently she refuses to enter people’s homes for fear they are haunted by evil spirits. The spectres in the venue had not been assessed and approved. Beyond being a very original way to decline an invite—one that I will be stealing—it’s a good reminder that at fashion week the past is always present.
Fashion is famous for reckoning with its dead. An awareness of the past is the difference between a brand and a house—you can start a brand, but a house must have a hallway of framed portraits of dead forebears.
I could write 5,000 more words about whether or not that’s a good thing for creativity and/or for business, but that’s not my point today. I wanna talk about Glenn Martens’ Maison Margiela show in Shanghai during Shanghai Fashion Week, which my friend A Magazine editor Blake Abbie texted me was “fucking amazing.”
In 75 looks, Martens made Maison Margiela his own without totally vanquishing the ghosts. On the creative director reverence-to-revolution spectrum, I think Martens always gets it right. Instead of re-doing what Martin Margiela did, he’s using Margiela’s anti-establishment spirit as a ticket to do, mostly, whatever the fucking hell he wants. And it’s so fun and outlandish. The Martens’ signatures are there in the hulking shapes and the oversize pret-a-porter, something he has made his personal motifs at Y/Project and Diesel—the other two heritage brands he resurrected before Margiela. It’s also there in the wild fabric experimentation and trompe l’oeil techniques, two more Martens-isms.
But it’s not allllllll Glennnnnnn. The real Martinists experts can identify the Martin Margiela breadcrumbs Martens uses that nod to the past without turning a fashion show into a full resurrection—cotton string ties knotted across blazers, the drawstring head-coverings, the carpet and tapestry work. He’s managed to upcycle a vibe rather than create an entire tribute brand.
As a self-identified Glenn-head, what I love about the collection, which I watched on livestream, were the dresses dripping in beeswax, flaking off crust on the catwalk. The metallic-looking armor gowns made from bolts of warped fabric. A knitted gown tucked into a corset and turned into a shroud, all wafty and ghastly in its beauty. A dress made from gluing vintage dresses to a base and then ripping them off, violent in its romanticism. A leather vest-dress that looks hammered on a form. Martens is pushing design forward using the Margiela tactic: Be weird, upcycle, recycle, and make new. It’s something we try to do at i-D—get in the Terry Jones mindset without creating an homage. Around the office, we always joke that if Terry founded i-D in 2026, it would be a Substack. And if Margiela invented red carpet dressing in 2026, it would probably be a dress made of smashed up porcelain. Blake, again, had the best take when I asked him if he’d wear the dinnerware look out: “I would have someone eat off me and then I’d serve.”
Obviously I had to ask Blake some more questions—here’s what he texted me:
How did Margiela vibe with the other shows at SFW?
It was a really great way to end the week. What I thought was really great is that Glenn was looking at different material references that might call upon some Chinese inspirations.
What were your favorite looks?
I would be hard-pressed to not say the porcelain dress. When the model was walking, there was almost an anxiety in the air, which really called upon the first season of the Artisanal collection that Martens showed last year. I think that all the masks were incredible. The first ones that had those doll faces printed on them were so haunting. Also, the beeswax dresses—the one that looked like denim that had beeswax poured all over it. How insane was that?
How was the show received? Describe the vibe in the room.
When we got driven to the port, which is about 45 minutes outside of the center of the city, there was a palpable excitement. We walked into this shipping container area, through a kind of a maze, which then brought us out to the show venue. It was a great crowd of friends and celebrities, but it really felt familial. It felt warm.
When the show started, it might’ve been one of the quietest shows I’ve seen in a while. We were all holding our breath as models slowly walked through these containers. 75 looks—but it didn’t feel long at all. You could feel people breathing, like shallow breathing, as these incredible creations walked past us.
