Maison Martin Margiela 20 - The Exhibition at Somerset House, London

Somerset House, the home of London Fashion Week, is pleased to present Maison Martin Margiela ‘20’ The Exhibition. Following the show’s success at MoMu, Antwerp and Haus der Kunst, Munich last year, the 20 year retrospective of the Belgian label’s deconstructivist designs has come to London.

Visitors to the beautiful neo-classical building set in the heart of the capital are guided to the exhibition at the Embankment Galleries by following helpfully placed ‘Tabi’ footprints – which represent the label’s signature style shoe design. GoSee followed them too (see photos).

The exhibition takes visitors on a journey spanning Maison Martin Margiela’s women’s and menswear collections and accessories over the past twenty years. It also includes the original installations, photography, video and film pieces that accompany and promote the collections. These avant-garde approaches are equally as important as the actual fashion designs when it comes to creating the label’s unique image.

Maison Martin Margiela ‘20’ The Exhibition provides curious visitors with a rare opportunity of gaining a better insight of a label famed for its anonymity. Martin Margiela, a graduate of Antwerp's Royal Academy of Fine Arts, previously worked as design assistant to Jean Paul Gaultier before showing his first collection under his own label in 1988.

The label has always adhered to its own rules, such as all communication being answered in the first person plural “we”, so as to highlight its attention on teamwork and Margiela’s own wish for anonymity, which remained intact, with no photos published of the designer until the release of his alleged image in a magazine after he left the label in 2008.

In the style of the plain white labels that are carefully stitched into the clothes, the space of the exhibition is curated in clean crisp whites and neutrals, interspersed with the occasional smatter of darker shades. It presents iconic coveted pieces such as the aforementioned ‘Tabi’ boots, Trompe L’Oeil photocopy style print dresses and ‘A Doll’s Wardrobe’ collection, which scaled up tiny clothes resulting in disproportions to reflect today’s standardised, idealised body.

A sleek video installation room with some comfortable sofas enables visitors to sit back and take in the video footage the Belgian label is so famed for. Maison Martin Margiela’s innovative collections and their modes of documentation and promotion remain as refreshing today as on the company’s founding day in 1988, surrounded by a sea of 80s decadent power dressing. 


Maison Martin Margiela ‘20’
The exhibition runs from 3 June – 5 September 2010
Somerset House, Embankment Galleries, Strand, London, WC2R 1LA
Open daily 10.00 to 18.00.
Late night opening Thurs until 20.00