Overview

• Martens, appointed in January as the house’s third creative director, unveiled his first Artisanal couture collection on July 9 at the former municipal crematorium in Paris.
• The show incorporated peeling trompe-l’œil walls, oversized metallic and feathered masks, and garments that oscillated between transparent plastics and richly bejeweled, liquid-metal gowns.
• Nearly all materials were sourced from Parisian thrift shops like Guérissol, with discarded textiles and metal boxes repurposed into couture pieces.
• Renzo Rosso praised Martens for preserving Margiela’s core codes while Carine Roitfeld declared, “After this show, we like fashion again.”
• Martens infused medieval Flemish and Dutch architectural motifs into layered fabric manipulations that evoked church façades and baroque interiors.