Maison Margiela Tokyo - Omotesando Boutique

The 5AC is the signature handbag of Maison Margiela, continuously interpreted by the house in a variety of styles. The new 5AC East West is infused with an “informal formality” elevated mood.

Modeled on a men’s briefcase, with a horizontal shape that inspired its name, the all-gender bag exudes laid-back chic.

Maison Margiela
Adrien Brody
The Met Gala
New York City, 6 May 2024

Maison Margiela Artisanal by John Galliano
Gwendoline Christie
The Met Gala
New York City, 6 May 2024

A black silk tulle opera coat with ‘retrograding’ in bands of black crinoline worn over a blood-orange-coloured silk velvet bias-cut column dress and a silk satin corset matching the skin tone of the muse. A blood-orange-coloured velvet ‘reverse swatching’ 5AC bag enveloped in black ripped stocking material and matching Tabi interlaced ankle-strap pumps by Christian Louboutin for Maison Margiela.

Created for Gwendoline Christie by John Galliano for Maison Margiela, the haute couture silhouette was inspired by exits six and eighteen in the 2024 Artisanal Collection. The coat was crafted with the collection’s ‘retrograding’, a technique through which variations of thread-work, appliqué or encrustation degrade from the bottom to the top of a garment. The practice illustrates the degeneration of detail that occurs when an image is imitated, or the linear base drawing of a painting that hasn’t yet been finished. It takes its name from the astrological phenomenon of retrograde: the apparent lunar movement said to spin our energy inward and activate a deeper consciousness.

The ‘reverse swatching’ technique (origin: Artisanal Collection Fall-Winter 2018) employed in the 5AC bag exchanges the fabrics traditionally used for certain parts of dressmaking with materials of a contrasting value as a way of ‘appropriating the inappropriate’ (origin: Artisanal Collection Spring-Summer 2018).

Maison Margiela Artisanal by John Galliano
Bad Bunny
The Met Gala
New York City, 6 May 2024

A navy washed barathea wool smoking with black grosgrain lapels and top-stitched red silk ribbon inseam lampasse, worn over a black satin corset. Black leather gloves, black silk socks, and black leather Tabi boots by Christian Louboutin for Maison Margiela worn ‘retrograding’ spats by Christian Louboutin for Maison Margiela. A ‘reverse swatching’ hat in midnight blue foam enveloped in midnight blue stocking material and a midnight blue washed barathea wool flower bouquet.

Created for Bad Bunny by John Galliano for Maison Margiela, the haute couture silhouette was inspired by the thirty-seventh exit in the 2024 Artisanal Collection. An expression of the studies of the ritual of dressing explored in the collection, the suit was painstakingly tailored over the corset to accentuate the illustrative line of the modified form. The bouquet is composed of a number of flowers: the Flor de Maga, the national flower of Puerto Rico; the rose, a symbol of beauty and purity; and the flax plant, the splinter of which Sleeping Beauty pricked her finger on in the classic fairy tale.

The ‘reverse swatching’ technique (origin: Artisanal Collection Fall-Winter 2018) employed in the hat exchanges the fabrics traditionally used for certain parts of dressmaking with materials of a contrasting value as a way of ‘appropriating the inappropriate’ (origin: Artisanal Collection Spring-Summer 2018).

Maison Margiela Artisanal by John Galliano
Kim Kardashian
The Met Gala
New York City, 6 May 2024

A pale grey thistle-washed boiled cashmere cardigan brushed to achieve a swan’s-down texture worn in a déshabillé gesture and draped over a corset made from an eighteenth century antique brocade fabric rewoven in jacquard silver threads and an ‘exfoliage’ skirt hand-wired in a ‘filigrading’ of silver metal formations of lace, flowers, leaves and sprigs interlinked with silver chain and floral motifs cut from mirror fragments, and bedecked with crystal pendants, pearls and clasped jewellery.

Created for Kim Kardashian by John Galliano for Maison Margiela, the haute couture silhouette was inspired by the symbiotic love affair between Elizabeth Taylor and her jewellery. Forged in the memory of gem-encrusted parures, guilloche-graved surfaces, cannetille and claw-set stones, brilliant-cuts and baguettes, and ornamented clasps and silver clips, it is imbued with the seductive spirit of the haute joaillerie of Place Vendôme in the golden age of haute couture. The look further reflects on the notion of ‘unconscious glamour’ (origin: Artisanal Collection Spring-Summer 2017), the evocation of iconography that resonates as glamorous in our collective awareness.

A new technique, ‘filigrading’ – a portmanteau of filigree and ‘retrograding’ – evolves, through hand-wired metalwork, the practice of ‘retrograding’ (origin: 2024 Artisanal Collection) which denotes a dégradé of thread-work, appliqué or encrustation. Over a thousand hours in the making, the hand-embroidered form was crafted to refract the light in the manner of jewellery. The haute couture skirt advances the cutting technique of ‘exfoliage’ (origin: Spring-Summer 2024 Co-Ed Collection) through which the top layer of a garment such as a dress is seductively déshabillé-draped over the front of a skirt, essentially exfoliating one garment to create a type of foliage within another.

Maison Margiela Artisanal by John Galliano
Zendaya
The Met Gala
New York City, 6 May 2024

A sage lamé bias-cut ‘siren dress’ overlaid with iridescent electric blue organza with ‘retrograding’ in undulating bands of hand-painted metallic crin, swathed in an aluminium material and iridescent organza drape and bow, with a corsage hand-embroidered in a bacchanal of hand-painted impasto in the grammar of the electric blues and emerald greens of scarab amulets, with formations of birds, flowers, vines, grapes and nuts, worn over a boudoir-coloured duchess satin corset. A silver metal-wire ‘reverse swatching’ hat and a black hand-painted voile crafted in the memory of plume and enveloped in matching coloured stockings by Stephen Jones for Maison Margiela, and Eau de Nil velour and faux lizard Tabi interlaced ankle-strap pumps by Christian Louboutin for Maison Margiela.

Created for Zendaya by John Galliano for Maison Margiela, the haute couture silhouette was inspired by the 1930s mythological works of the photographer Madame Yevonde and imbued with the memory of the orgiastic sceneries of the bacchanals of Ancient Greece. In a dance between painterly cutting and draping techniques – unique to each layer of the construction – and the superposition of fabric textures such as tin foil with transparent iridescent organza overlay, the composition conjures the staccato brushstrokes of Giovanni Boldini. The bias-cut ‘siren dress’ is a key expression in the creative practice of John Galliano, which first appeared at Maison Margiela in the Spring-Summer 2020 Artisanal Collection. Infused with a certain ‘snobisme’, the look is given the epithet of ‘86 and Lexington’, a nod to the subway station near The Met.

The dress was crafted with ‘retrograding’ (origin: 2024 Artisanal Collection), a technique through which variations of thread-work, appliqué or encrustation degrade from the bottom to the top of a garment like the linear base drawing of a painting that hasn’t yet been finished. The ‘reverse swatching’ technique (origin: Artisanal Collection Fall-Winter 2018) employed in the hat exchanges the fabrics traditionally used for certain parts of dressmaking with materials of a contrasting value.

Maison Margiela Artisanal 2024 Collection by John Galliano for V Magazine

Maison Margiela Artisanal 2024 Collection by John Galliano for Another Man – Volume II, Issue I.

Anne Hathaway in Maison Margiela Artisanal 2024 Collection by John Galliano in V Magazine

Maison Margiela Artisanal 2024 Collection by John Galliano photographed by Steven Meisel for Vogue

Maison Margiela Artisanal 2024 Collection by John Galliano photographed by Steven Meisel for Vogue

Maison Margiela Co-Ed Spring-Summer 2024 Collection by John Galliano

Co-Ed Spring-Summer 2024 Collection by John Galliano on the cover of Harper's Bazaar Italia

Photographer: W***y Vanderperre
Creative Director: Marc Ascoli
Styling: Olivier Rizzo
Model: Rianne Van Rompaey
Hair: Anthony Turner
Make Up: Lynsey Alexander
Manicure: Chloé Nguyen
Casting Director: AshleyBrokaw

Maison Margiela × Gentle Monster
The collaboration collection is now available at https://www.maisonmargiela.com/fr-fr/maison-margiela/tout/a-la-une/gentle-monster/

Maison Margiela × Gentle Monster
Second Chapter
March 7th

Maison Margiela x Gentle Monster eyewear collection conjures the grammar of retro-futurism and heroism through animated silhouettes evocative of imagery familiar to our mutual recollection. The proposal is reflected in a creative dialogue fuelled by the experimental artisanal values shared by Gentle Monster and Maison Margiela.