From Antwerp to Rue Saint-Maur: Martens Redefines Maison Margiela

By levi Blue

In a move poised to reshape the contours of couture, Belgian designer Glenn Martens will unveil his inaugural haute couture collection for Maison Margiela during Paris Couture Week in July 2025. This debut marks not only a new chapter for the storied maison but also a subtle recalibration of luxury fashion’s direction, blending intellectual edge with artisanal depth. Following the celebrated departure of John Galliano, whose final Artisanal Spring/Summer 2024 collection was a theatrical crescendo to a decade-long tenure, Martens steps in not merely as a successor, but as a new architect of Margiela’s experimental legacy.

Maison Margiela’s decision to entrust Martens with the Fall/Winter 2025 Artisanal collection is deeply emblematic. In a statement, the house described this moment as “an inspiring new chapter rooted in our core creative values,” with couture once again at the helm of innovation. It is a commitment not just to continue a legacy, but to reinvigorate it with a modern hand—one that knows how to speak both the language of the avant-garde and the codes of contemporary luxury.

Martens, who continues to lead Diesel—a brand he has reinvigorated since 2020 with gritty conceptualism and directional clarity—embodies a rare duality in fashion today: the ability to traverse mass appeal and high artistry. His appointment by OTB Group founder Renzo Rosso was no mere formality; it was a deliberate act of continuity, positioning Martens alongside Martin Margiela and Galliano as one of the maison’s three true couturiers. The symbolism runs deep: Belgian by birth and trained at Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Martens shares not only a geographical origin with Margiela himself but a philosophical one—anchored in deconstruction, intellectual rigor, and a certain elegant subversion.

There’s a poetic inevitability to Martens’ role at Margiela. His past couture venture with Jean Paul Gaultier in 2022 offered an exquisite foreshadowing of what’s to come—his silhouettes sculptural, his references collaged, yet always with a reverence for legacy. At Margiela, that sensibility finds a fertile ground. The house, ever synonymous with reimagined tailoring and ghostly romanticism, now stands on the cusp of what may become a return to cerebral minimalism—filtered, of course, through Martens’ own lens of radical form and cultural duality.

Unlike Galliano’s maximalist drama and baroque emotion, Martens’ vision leans into architectural precision. His command of volume and asymmetry, his taste for industrial textures woven into couture contexts, offers the promise of a more analytical Margiela—one that whispers where Galliano roared, but with no less impact. This shift is not regression, but evolution. It mirrors the current moment in luxury, where opulence is defined not by excess, but by intellect, intent, and craft.

July’s Paris Couture Week is shaping up as a turning point, with seismic movements across the fashion landscape: Demna’s final couture bow at Balenciaga before his much-rumored move to Gucci; Iris Van Herpen’s ethereal return; and Giambattista Valli’s celebratory showcase. Yet it is Martens at Margiela who may deliver the most conceptually resonant statement. The anticipation lies not in spectacle, but in how he will distill the maison’s DNA into something startlingly new.

Maison Margiela has always occupied a space apart from fashion’s mainstream—a sanctuary for those who see clothes as cultural artifacts rather than status symbols. In entrusting Martens with its most sacred expression—couture—the house signals faith in his capacity to reframe that ethos for a new era. If Galliano brought theatre and tenderness to the Margiela mythos, Martens may usher in a kind of luxurious austerity: exacting, enigmatic, and quietly radical.

As fashion’s pendulum swings once again toward craft, restraint, and meaning, Glenn Martens arrives not as a disruptor, but as a necessary recalibration. His Margiela will not imitate the past—it will interrogate it, refine it, and push it forward. And in doing so, it may offer the most luxurious proposition of all: couture as a space for thoughtful, boundary-breaking design.