Image via Oh Fantastic
In the late summer and early fall of 2008, events for Maison Martin Margiela’s 20th Anniversary were in full swing. Parties. A runway show homage to the company’s past. A traveling exhibit stopping at multiple major museums. In retrospect, the attendees were unknowing participants in a celebratory wake for the career of Martin Margiela: after months of rumors that Martin Margiela was distancing himself from the design process, the Maison officially announced that he had already left the company he founded.
In November 2012, the Maison did it again. The party was ostensibly for the launch of H&M x MMM, but if you took a step back you could see it meant more. It was a coming out party for the new Margiela brand: bold, brash, quietly self-aggrandizing, keeping itself in the public eye any way but advertising. It was a move Renzo Rosso telegraphed not long after he claimed a majority stake of Maison Martin Margiela in 2002; a strategy that looked brilliant with the rise of the 24 hour internet news cycle, and prescient by the rise of social media. Now it appears the company is using social media to bridge the gap between the old, quiet, anonymous brand, and the new brand. But the “new brand,” still visually intact as white, weird, and playfully intellectual, looks to be only an open door allowing us to see inside the Maison. A move that, while popular, effectively destroys the old brand identity based on anonymity, like a magician giving away all of his secrets. Does the company have anything to take the place of the identity it destroyed, or will they just hope the white door is enough? And do they fear that consumers will discover the open door is just an illusion, revealing little more than clever designs in white?
—-Read the entire feature after the jump
Table of Contents
Background – Branding the Blank Canvas
Becoming a Luxury Company – Operations
Becoming a Luxury Company – Marketing
Burning and Building Bridges – The H&M Collaboration
Background: Branding the Blank Canvas
Maison Martin Margiela’s guiding branding principle, until its takeover by Renzo Rosso’s Only the Brave holding company, was anonymity. It began with Martin Margiela’s almost complete refusal to engage celebrity culture, which “ironicially… became exponentially interesting to the media.”1 Early in his career he would give brief interviews and appear with the design team after runway shows, everyone clad in white lab coats, but he stopped engaging in both in the early 90’s. Susannah Frankel, whom the Maison describes as “one of the most authoritative voices on the Maison’s history and role in fashion,” stated that “[t]he single most significant idea that drives this brand is, perhaps, its anti-marketing stance.* So in addition to Mr. Margiela’s silence, the brand was also silent in its own way: the company has never engaged in traditional print or television advertising.
The brand chose the color white as its primary visual branding tool to reinforce the concept of anonymity. The Maison states that the color white is an undefined blank canvas: “[n]eutral, the binary opposite of black, or a blank canvas,”2 and, “evidence of option, an option of expression, be that ours or that of those who choose to wear the clothes we propose.”3 Its choice of white for the label clarifies how white stands for anonymity in a more practical sense.
The tag is a plain white, rectangular cloth on the inside of the garment, held together with four pick stitches on the corners. The Maison states this was initially, “A proclamation of anonymity, the desire to not to distract from the garment with a name brand, a response to the tyranny of logos. The four white pick stitches were first conceived to hold the labels in place and to be easily undone, thus rendering the item unidentifiable.”4 Though the house now concedes, “These stitches nevertheless became a sort of emblem, recognisable from a distance.”5
The first Margiela headquarters in 1988 were painted white, so the use of white and the concept of anonymity has been in place since the Maison’s founding 6. Other public ways the Maison continues to use white includes long white coats for the store sales assistants, white cotton convenience store bags to hold retail purchases, white glossy boxes to hold clothes, shoes and accessories, white paint covering almost everything in Margiela stores, clothing painted white, and white cotton envelopes for press communication.
Selling the Mystery
The Maison is, and always has been, a luxury concern that is “branded through and through.”7 Why were people so willing to accept MMM as some sort of stoic outlier when it was still clearly branded and marketed, and in a way that didn’t necessarily relate to the product? In what way did chaotic deconstruction, humorous trompe l’oeil, “Replicas,” and almost absurdist “Artisanal” works relate to white paint and anonymity? A blank tag is still a tag; it still signifies something unique if no other company uses the same size, shape, or fabric composition. The four stitches visible from the outside of the garment brands MMM clothing just as an embroidered crocodile brands Lacoste.
There’s no clear explanation, but there are clues. Regardless of the Maison’s unusual branding methods, “the clothes still dominated.” Martin Margiela’s tailoring skill has been compared to Savile Row8 and his cutting technique was “legendary.”9 His designs were described as years ahead of their time and highly influential. They’ve also been described as intellectual or clever, which supported any number of odd things MMM did, such as their unusual runway presentations and invitations. The clothes, while well-made and unique, were neutral enough to allow the wearer feel as if they defined the clothing.10 In using Deconstruction, and making public statements referring to his love of fashion history, Mr. Margiela may have used the past to imbue himself with a sense of legitimacy. And of course, Mr. Margiela’s aesthetic and public persona were in direct opposition to the glamour excess of the late 80’s and 90’s, and fashion loves any perceptible shift.
Anonymity would be cast aside when Renzo Rosso’s Only the Brave claimed a majority stake in Maison Martin Margiela in 2002.
[For a more complete discussion of the Maison’s Conceptual hallmarks, themes, and brand philosophy, including the varied meanings it has given for using white, please see the Maison Martin Margiela Reference Guide]
Becoming a Luxury Company: Operations
In 2002, a majority stake of Maison Martin Margiela was acquired by Diesel founder/President Renzo Rosso (MMM was held as Neuf SAS and acquired through Rosso’s Italian holding group Only the Brave). OTB owns the brands like Diesel, 55DSL, Maison Martin Margiela and Viktor & Rolf. OTB also owns Staff International S.p.A., a manufacturing and distribution arm with licensing agreements to produce Maison Martin Margiela, Viktor & Rolf, Dsquared2, Vivienne Westwood, Marc Jacobs Men and Just Cavalli.*
MMM likely sold a majority stake to OTB because it was facing significant financial difficulties.1,2,3 CEO Giovanni Pungetti stated that, upon being hired as CEO, he found the company was “stagnant and unprofitable.”4 In an interview with Women’s Wear Daily, Mr. Rosso indicated the company needed a complete overhaul: production, distribution, staffing, sales, marketing, and executive leadership.5
In just under 10 years of ownership, MMM’s revenues went from €15m in 2002,6,7 to €75m in 2011.8 If Mr. Pungetti is to be believed, the company was unprofitable in 2002,9 and only began to make a profit for under OTB in 2007, after making €60m.10 To date, since OTB’s takeover, MMM has introduced or heavily expanded twelve product “Lines” and collaborated with Yoox, Opening Ceremony, and H&M, to name a few.
MMM unmasked itself on the path to commercial success. Its four couture stitches became “a status symbol for fashion insiders.”11 Its Sartorial Collection actually includes a gold embroidered signature reading “Maison Martin Margiela” in the lining of the garments12 – something of an anathema to an “unbranded” company. Pungetti and Rosso freely discussed the Maison’s business with the press, though they never spoke for the design team. MMM products are widely available online since most major retailers have webstores, and it appears MMM does not restrict what those retailers may post online. MMM now has official profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Youtube, Instagram and Tumblr, in addition to its own official site and “eboutique.” And in perhaps the strangest twist, it became a VIP label, but most publicly with rappers, from juggernauts like Jay-Z and Kanye West, to much-hyped newcomer A$AP Rocky.
[For a more complete look at the how OTB expanded MMM, including a timeline of product/line/project launches, revenue, and statements from executive management about their motivations, please see the Maison Martin Margiela Reference Guide]
Becoming a Luxury Company: Marketing
In a 2004 intervew with WWD, Renzo Rosso made statements that showed he understood the brand he was taking over. He further conveyed that for the company to succeed, the brand itself would have to be open to change, and that he would advertise it as much as possible without traditional advertising.
Mr. Rosso clearly knew that Maison Martin Margiela was not normally associated with business-speak, stating, “We’re starting to analyze the brand… We now can measure selling and sell-out, and there is a real production system. We have early deliveries. I feel it’s a new start. We’ve come to know each other very well. What I didn’t want to do is destroy the heart, the passion of the house. But I wanted to provide the tools to support the business. Now we have professional people.”1 Mr. Rosso’s understanding of the brand was further exhibited by when he said the company would not advertise – something the company almost entirely eschewed – but instead would pursue an “aggressive communication strategy.”2 Finally, in what seemed like an out of place statement, he said that the company would strive to dress more “VIP’s.”3
And in that short interview, Mr. Rosso laid out the path for MMM’s public relations future: advertising without advertising by taking the existing culture and amplifying it. Amongst the twelve product lines launched during Rosso’s tenure, there were heavy expansions in large moneymakers like accessories and footwear, along with a fragrance deal with L’Oreal and a jewelry deal with the Damiani Group.4
In 1999, the Maison had a small, short-lived collaboration with French mail order company 3 Suisses.5,6,7 In 2009, Artisanal Line pieces were sold by Yoox.8 In 2011, MM6 collaborated with Opening Ceremony. 9 In 2012, the H&M collaboration.
History has always been celebrated in its own unique way at the Maison. Philosophically and practically, the Maison has aligned itself with fashion history through its Replica line, deconstruction, and its use of white.* The Maison has said that using white references history, amongst other things, because white shows the unique aging process of a garment.10 In October 1993, after just five years in business, the runway show was retrospective of the Maison’s designs.13 In 1999, the Maison presented clothing treated with “agar, a gelatinous bacterial food,” then “mold, bacteria, or yeast,” and left the clothing to be consumed by the bacteria.11 Over time they changed drastically in color and texture. This was said to be “inspired by the fact that it was a draper and haberdasher, Anton van Leeuwenhoek, who was the first person to observe microorganisms. He saw them through a powerful magnifying glass he had developed to check the quality of his cloth.”12
Under Rosso, many of the exhibits had a synergistic connection with new product. The Margiela “Home Line” was announced just four months after the Maison redesigned the Elle Decoration Suite at the Cite de L’Architecture in Paris, France.14 After that, several high profile interior redesigns occurred.15,16,17 And for the Maison’s 20th anniversary, there was again a retrospective runway show. There was also an anniversary book, parties, and a traveling exhibit with exclusive merchandise. The exhibit itself was also an amplification. The Maison was no stranger to museums or artistic collaboration, but they were never so celebrated or attention-seeking. Most fashion exhibits don’t boast attendees like Daphne Guinness and Gareth Pugh.18
In a fortuitous coincidence, Mr. Rosso’s “communications” strategy was bolstered and thrived as the internet news cycle progressively became comprehensive.
Perhaps the only novel additions to the Maison’s PR cycle were Mr. Rosso and Mr. Pungetti. They made, and continue to make frequent statements to the press regarding the business aspects of the company (the creative aspects are still answered in the traditional collective manner by, purportedly, the design team). Besides being a good way to keep the company in the press, it was likely a necessary evil to assure the luxury world of the company’s strength. And the company has been strong, continuing to increase revenue, even through an international recession.$ But their openness has been a liability.
Whereas collaborations, exhibits, and new product lines were slow expansions of the existing business and culture, their statements quickly shifted the Maison from fringe brand to Luxury Company. Rosso and Pungetti understood the shift was occurring, and did make attempts to salvage the brand’s outlier status by mentioning the old brand’s philosophy and design. These statements rang hollow because they were slight comments wedged into business-oriented rhetoric. Mr. Pungetti claimed in 2008 that “we are hot because we are democratic, we are ourselves and we don’t like to shout.”19 He described the Maison’s interior design work by saying, “Creating ambience is a very important development area.”20 Later, the statements they made seemed disingenuous because of their continual undercutting of Martin Margiela’s role at the company.
The image of the old Maison may have been laid to rest in the winter of 2009. Rumors had already been circulating that Martin Margiela had left the Maison, or had checked out of the design process and he was looking for a successor.21 Maison Martin Margiela was in the public eye due to the incredibly large push the Maison’s marketing team had put into the 20th anniversary events and products in 2008. While addressing the rumors, Rosso either miscalculated or was careless with his words when the whole world was watching, claiming, “Martin has not been there for a long time. We have a new fresh design team on board. We are focusing on young, realistic energy for the future; this is really Margiela for the year 2015.”22
Lucian James, writing for Business of Fashion, found the quote encapsulated a huge set of problems: “[Rosso’s statement] undermined the role of Martin Margiela,” downplayed the “importance of any transitional talent at the brand,” “set a course for the future which sounded more like a business plan than a brand positioning,” was disorienting in its mention of “Margiela for the year 2015,” and “had the effect of opening the curtain to reveal nobody was there, while inviting people to believe nothing had changed.”23 Mr Pungetti did not help matters much. In attempting to assuage fears, WWD reported that Mr. Pungetti “stressed that Margiela remains allied with [OTB’s] strategy.”24
The cat was out of the bag. Anyone who was paying attention saw that the brand was now a truly a business, and it no longer had its visionary founder. But the new Maison was not quite ready to be unveiled. The new brand waited until the H&M collaboration to announce its arrival to the public at large.
Burning and Building Bridges – The H&M Collaboration
Photo © H&M / Maison Martin Margiela
After a decade of successful efforts to commercialize Maison Martin Margiela, the H&M collaboration was the perfect opportunity for the public unveiling of the new brand: a mass market hype machine in the age of social media sharing. The Maison’s justifications for the collaboration and the products it provided were incredibly shrewd. Collaborations and new product lines frequently occurred in the Maison’s past, so doing another one was not unprecedented. However, the other collaborations were still small in scale and relatively unknown, and reactions to the normally aloof brand doing a mass market collaboration were still puzzled and incredulous. The Maison had to have anticipated this: by reproducing pieces from its past, the Maison legitimized the endeavor by referencing its own fondness of fashion history, its history of reproducing its own pieces, and its longstanding claims that its designs are “democratic” by offering its past pieces to more people at a more accessible price*,1,2
The collaboration was the perfect non-traditional press generator. “H&M, a colossal company, among the largest clothing retailers in the world, doesn’t make its money from these capsule collections. No, these are devised to add lustre to the company, to lure customers into stores, to draw praise from celebrities and actors, to encourage this sort of article.”3 The collaboration itself was covered by sources as unlikely as MSNBC,4 Forbes.com,5 and Bloomberg.6 The international launch party in New York City was a star-studded affair, with many of the model/celebrity/actor/singer attendees wearing the collaboration collection. Sarah Jessica Parker, Kanye West, Doutzen Kroes, Julianne Moore and Alexander Wang were just some of the attendees. The event was covered by Vogue, The Cut, WWD, the New York Times, and countless other publications.
Traditional advertising was used, but it can be blamed on H&M and the collaboration as long as the Maison does not embark on advertising on its non-collaboration Lines. There were multiple behind the scenes videos for the ad campaign photo shoot. That photo shoot produced a print ad campaign, almost entirely unheard of in MMM’s past, for “international editions of Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire, GQ and Dazed & Confused.”7 Most baffling of all, there was the “Silent Manifesto,” in which large groups of young people – usually wearing head to toe black, covered with a white apron, with many carrying collaboration placards – walked silently through cities worldwide.8,9 But the logo was always the collaboration specific logo. It is also worth noting that the agency that created the US Silent Manifesto lists H&M as the client, not Margiela or Only the Brave.
The advent of social media made Rosso’s communications strategy appear prophetic
Social media runs parallel to traditional advertising: it is clearly a brand marketing itself, but importantly it is seen as a conversation that the consumer can participate in, and might even expect.10 Thus, the Maison’s entry into social media was not advertising, it was a reclusive genius finally entering the modern age. MMM’s social media team was in overdrive. In just over a month leading up to the November 15, 2012 release, there were 50 tweets (though to be fair, 29 of those tweets occurred on a single day: October 23, the international launch party), 13 related Facebook posts, and 5 Youtube videos. The official MMM Instagram account was launched on October 18.11,12 And the language used in the Margiela team’s Tweets and posts were just as important as the content and frequency. The formerly reclusive brand invited people to “check out,” “discover,” and “visit us.”13,14,15 They also asked people to “be part of the buzz” – and share the collaboration hashtag #MargielawithHM.16 So long as the company does not engage in print or television advertising, it has salvaged a small amount of continuity between the past and present brand identities, and there is certainly carryover with the visual branding.
Where does MMM see its brand now and how it will proceed? The company grew just as Giovanni Pungetti told the design team when he became CEO: the brand did not have to be niche to be successful.17 But he seemed to think they were afraid they would not be “cool,” and missed that they probably feared the cultural change of a man who did not see the difference between Diesel brand and Maison Martin Margiela’s brand in 2002.18 Was something lost in the process? Is the brand producing the same quality, avant garde designs that once left Marc Jacobs defending his designs from accusations of copying and guided other designers to the future? Has it become just another luxury brand? If this is true, is the alternative, the closure of an unprofitable company around 2002, preferable?
While Maison Martin Margiela is still visually painted white, making unusual designs, and doing weird stuff on the runway, it has abandoned its past branding philosophy based on anonymity and has not replaced it with anything. This social media blitz is not a phase, it is the new normal. Critical praise for its designs, which the Maison receives, though not nearly to the degree it used to, once held the Maison beyond derision for its weirdness and made people at least wonder if there was greater meaning to their antics. But attempting to be both mysterious and ostentatious can produce laughable results, just look at the Silent Manifesto.
Apple isn’t a terrible comparison. A cult brand with highly regarded product design, from appearance to function, suddenly marketing niche products for mass sales, haunted by the legacy of its former leader, and complaints that it has lost its way. Eventually the aura of the “mysterious” brand will fade once everyone has seen it, and then what will be left? If MMM continues to ride the hype and sells well, it probably doesn’t matter, and it’s worth wondering if the company sees this as a problem either.
Citations and Credits
Background: Branding the Blank Canvas
1. Lucian James, Maison Martin Margiela: The Cult of Invisibility – Part Two, Business of Fashion (October 28, 2009), http://www.businessoffashion.com/2009/10/maison-martin-margiela-the-cult-of-invisibility-part-two.html. ↩
*Phrasing taken from the Reference Guide. Susannah Frankel, The birth, death, and re-birth of conceptual fashion, in Ian Luna, ed., Maison Martin Margiela (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 2009), insert between 40-1. ↩
2. Official Glossary, White. ↩
3. Filep Motwary, INTERVIEW: MAISON MARTIN MARGIELA in conversation with FILEP MOTWARY, Un Nouveau Ideal (June 29, 2010)http://www.filepmotwary.com/motwary/2010/06/interview-maison-martin-margiela-in-a-conversation-with-filep-motwary.html. ↩
4. Official Facebook Page of Maison Martin Margiela, Portrait Section, White label and the four white stitcheshttps://www.facebook.com/maisonmargiela/app_398357830200320. ↩
5. White label and the four white stitches, see footnote 4. ↩
6. Susannah Frankel, Martin Margiela: Fashion’s Invisible Superstar, The Independent (July 16, 2008), http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/features/martin-margiela-fashions-invisible-superstar-868562.html. ↩
7. Sarah Mower, Margiela, Be mine, Vogue (September 2008), in Ian Luna, ed., Maison Martin Margiela (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 2009), 175. ↩
8. Mark Holgate, Who is Martin Margiela?, Harvey Nichols Magazine, in Ian Luna, ed., Maison Martin Margiela (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 2009), 175. ↩
9. Amy M. Spindler, Coming Apart, N.Y. Times (July 25, 1993) http://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/25/style/coming-apart.html. ↩
10. Margiela, Be Mine, see footnote 7. ↩
Becoming a Luxury Company: Operations
*Phrasing taken from the Reference Guide. See the Guide for citations. www.thirdlooks.com/2012/11/maison-martin-margiela-reference-guide. ↩
1. Suzy Menkes, Class act: Margiela moves up a grade, International Herald Tribune (January 11, 2005), https://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/10/style/10iht-fmartin.html?_r=0. ↩
2. Christina Passariello, Antwerp’s Fashion Rebels Get Serious About Business , The Wall Street Journal (September 26, 2008), http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122236927604575907.html. ↩
3. Correspondence btw Malcolm Mclaren and Maison Martin Margiela, Has Anybody Seen My Old Friend Martin?, N.Y. Times T Magazine (March 13, 2005), https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/style/tmagazine/TM1502150.html. ↩
4. Antwerp’s Fashion Rebels Get Serious About Business , see footnote 2. ↩
5. Robert Murphy, Getting Down to Business at Margiela, Women’s Wear Daily (December 29, 2004), http://www.wwd.com/retail-news/retail-features/getting-down-to-business-at-margiela-588980?full=true. ↩
6. Imran Amed, CEO Talk | Giovanni Pungetti, Chief Executive Officer, Maison Martin Margiela, Business of Fashion (September 29, 2011), http://www.businessoffashion.com/2011/09/ceo-talk-giovanni-pungetti-chief-executive-officer-maison-martin-margiela.html. ↩
7. Suzy Menkes, Martin Margiela to Leave Fashion House He Founded , N.Y. Times (December 8, 2009), https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/business/global/09diesel.html?ref=martinmargiela&_r=0. ↩
8. CEO Talk | Giovanni Pungetti, Chief Executive Officer, Maison Martin Margiela, see footnote 6. ↩
9. Antwerp’s Fashion Rebels Get Serious About Business , see footnote 2. ↩
10. Miles Socha, Art Versus Commerce: Can Margiela Expand Without Selling Out?, Women’s Wear Daily (May 2, 2008), http://www.wwd.com/fashion-news/designer-luxury/art-versus-commerce-can-margiela-expand-without-selling-out-455630. ↩
11. Antwerp’s Fashion Rebels Get Serious About Business , see footnote 2. ↩
12. Ian Luna, ed., Maison Martin Margiela (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.) 2009. ↩
Becoming a Luxury Company: Marketing
1. Robert Murphy, Getting Down to Business at Margiela, Women’s Wear Daily (December 29, 2004), http://www.wwd.com/retail-news/retail-features/getting-down-to-business-at-margiela-588980?full=true. ↩
2. Antwerp’s Fashion Rebels Get Serious About Business , see footnote 1. ↩
3. Antwerp’s Fashion Rebels Get Serious About Business , see footnote 1. ↩
4. Ian Luna, ed., Maison Martin Margiela (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 2009). ↩
5. Martin Margiela, ModeFix (April 25, 2009) http://fr.modefix.com/createurs/108527.html. ↩
6. Who’s Who?, Prevalent Style; http://www.prevalentstyle.com/?page_id=269. ↩
7. Simon Chilvers, Martin Margiela and H&M: extreme fashion heads for the high street, The Guardian (October 24, 2012) http://www.guardian.co.uk/fashion/2012/oct/24/martin-margiela-hm-extreme-fashion. ↩
8. Yoox Group Press Release, Maison Martin Margiela Artisanal, (November 2009) http://www.yooxgroup.com/en/press_area/press_releases/yoox_2009.asp. ↩
9. Opening Ceremony Blog, MM6 Maison Martin Margiela x Opening Ceremony, (August 4, 2011) http://www.openingceremony.us/entry.asp?pid=4070. ↩
* See the Maison Martin Margiela Reference Guide for more information on the Maison’s Replica Line, use of deconstruction, and varied use of white. www.thirdlooks.com/2012/11/maison-martin-margiela-reference-guide. ↩
10. Chris Dercon, Fashion Like the Dark Side of the Moon: the Moon Ray, in Ian Luna, ed., Maison Martin Margiela (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 2009), insert between 136-7. ↩
11. Eric V. Copage, NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: BROOKLYN HEIGHTS; As Dresses Decompose, Designs, Presumably, Are Born, N.Y. Times (May 23, 1999) http://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/23/nyregion/neighborhood-report-brooklyn-heights-dresses-decompose-designs-presumably-are.html. ↩
12. NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT: BROOKLYN HEIGHTS; As Dresses Decompose, Designs, Presumably, Are Born, see footnote 10. ↩
13. Amy M. Spindler, Review/Fashion; Four Designers In the Vanguard Hold the Line, N.Y. Times (October 11, 1993), www.nytimes.com/1993/10/11/style/review-fashion-four-designers-in-the-vanguard-hold-the-line.html. ↩
14. Emmanuelle Javell, Philippe Trétiack, and Marie-Pierre Morel, Carte blanche à la Maison Martin Margiela , Elle France, http://www.elle.fr/Deco/Les-visites-privees/Toutes-les-visites-privees/Carte-blanche-a-la-Maison-Martin-Margiela. ↩
15. Lillian Davies, In Suite with Maison Margiela, ArtSlant Paris (August 13, 2009), http://www.artslant.com/par/articles/show/9319. ↩
16. Press Release from Maison Martin Margiela, Luxury Hospitality Daily (December 1, 2009), http://www.luxury-hospitality-daily.com/index.php?id_actu=26624&home=actu_detail.php. ↩
17. Christine Muhlke, Now Booking: Martin Margiela’s Suite Hereafter, N.Y. Times T Magazine (December 23, 2009), http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/now-booking-martin-margielas-suite-hereafter/. ↩
18. Tim Blanks, Enigma variations, Style.com (June 3, 2010), http://www.style.com/peopleparties/parties/scoop/global-060310_Margiela_20_Exhibition. ↩
$ See the Maison Martin Margiela Reference Guide for a revenue timeline. www.thirdlooks.com/2012/11/maison-martin-margiela-reference-guide. ↩
19. Miles Socha, Art Versus Commerce: Can Margiela Expand Without Selling Out?, Women’s Wear Daily (May 2, 2008), http://www.wwd.com/fashion-news/designer-luxury/art-versus-commerce-can-margiela-expand-without-selling-out-455630. ↩
20. Suzy Menkes, Martin Margiela to Leave Fashion House He Founded , N.Y. Times (December 8, 2009), https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/business/global/09diesel.html?ref=martinmargiela&_r=0. ↩
21. Eric Wilson, Martin Margiela to Leave Fashion House He Founded , N.Y. Times On the Runway Blog(September 28, 2008), http://runway.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/martin-margiela-to-remain-at-jil-sander/. ↩
22. Lauren Milligan, Margiela sans Margiela, Vogue UK (October 3, 2009), http://www.vogue.co.uk/news/2009/10/03/martin-margiela-no-longer-at-the-maison. ↩
23. Lucian James, Maison Martin Margiela: The Cult of Invisibility – Part two, Business of Fashion (October 29, 2009), http://www.businessoffashion.com/2009/10/maison-martin-margiela-the-cult-of-invisibility-part-two.html. ↩
24. Miles Socha, Margiela Exits Margiela, Women’s Wear Daily (December 9, 2009), http://www.wwd.com/fashion-news/designer-luxury/margiela-exits-margiela-2389402. ↩
Burning and Building Bridges – The H&M Collaboration
* See the Maison Martin Margiela Reference Guide for more information on the Maison’s use of history and democratic design. www.thirdlooks.com/2012/11/maison-martin-margiela-reference-guide. ↩
1. Miles Socha, Art Versus Commerce: Can Margiela Expand Without Selling Out?, Women’s Wear Daily (May 2, 2008), http://www.wwd.com/fashion-news/designer-luxury/art-versus-commerce-can-margiela-expand-without-selling-out-455630. ↩
2. Jessica Punter, Limited re-edition, British GQ (October 3, 2012), http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/style/articles/2012-10/03/hm-martin-margiela-collaboration. ↩
3. Derek McCormack, Inside H&M’s arty Maison Martin Margiela collaboration launch, National Post (November 11, 2012), http://life.nationalpost.com/2012/11/11/inside-hms-arty-maison-martin-margiela-collaboration-launch/. ↩
4. Hilary George-Parkin, Wearable? H&M has a kooky new collaboration, Today.com (October 17, 2012), http://thelook.today.com/_news/2012/10/17/14512242-wearable-hm-has-a-kooky-new-collaboration. ↩
5. Lydia Dishman, How H&M Will Make Maison Martin Margiela Bigger Than Kanye West Could, Forbes.com (June 12, 2012), http://www.forbes.com/sites/lydiadishman/2012/06/12/how-hm-will-make-maison-martin-margiela-a-household-name/. ↩
6. Julie Cruz, H&M November Sales Beat Estimates After Margiela Line Debut, Bloomberg.com (December 17, 2012), http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-17/h-m-november-sales-beat-analysts-estimates-after-margiela-line.html. ↩
7. Samantha Conti, Sam Taylor-Johnson Lenses Campaign for Margiela, H&M Collection, Women’s Wear Daily (October 2, 2012), http://wwd2.wwd.com/media-news/fashion-memopad/sams-paris-6371019. ↩
8. Official Facebook Page of Maison Martin Margiela, AlbumsSection, Maison Martin Margiela with H&M – Silent Manifestohttps://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151128559935913.432345.21415640912&type=3. ↩
9. Largetail, Our Work Section H&M: MMM Silent Manifesto (2012), http://www.largetail.com/#/hm-silent-manifesto/. ↩
10. Eric Savitz Social Media: Evolving From Broadcasting To Conversation, Forbes.com (September 15, 2011), http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2011/09/15/social-media-evolving-from-broadcasting-to-conversation/. ↩
11. Official Facebook Page of Maison Martin Margiela, TimelineSection (October 18, 2012) http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151122764788785&set=a.10151122764778785.441077.92588673784&type=1. ↩
12. Official Twitter of Maison Martin Margiela (October 18, 2012) https://twitter.com/Margiela/status/258965982708637696. ↩
13. Official Twitter of Maison Martin Margiela (November 13, 2012) https://twitter.com/Margiela/status/268401230777290752. ↩
14. Official Twitter of Maison Martin Margiela (November 12, 2012) https://twitter.com/Margiela/status/268047363195695104. ↩
15. Official Twitter of Maison Martin Margiela (October 18, 2012) https://twitter.com/Margiela/status/258965982708637696. ↩
16. Official Twitter of Maison Martin Margiela (October 22, 2012) https://twitter.com/Margiela/status/260507121571991552. ↩
17. Imran Amed, CEO Talk | Giovanni Pungetti, Chief Executive Officer, Maison Martin Margiela, Business of Fashion (September 29, 2011), http://www.businessoffashion.com/2011/09/ceo-talk-giovanni-pungetti-chief-executive-officer-maison-martin-margiela.html. ↩
18. CEO Talk | Giovanni Pungetti, Chief Executive Officer, Maison Martin Margiela, see footnote 17. ↩
