Glenn Martens Just Keeps Getting Better at Maison Margiela

Glenn Martens brought the Paris flea market to Shanghai for his latest Margiela collection and the results are truly magnificent.

With inspirations ranging from Chinese porcelain to Edwardian tailoring to ’90s grade school sticker mania, the collection was a mashup of couture and ready-to-wear and featured a plethora of Margiela-isms — the anonymous face masks, second skin garments, bianchetto white painted pieces,  unconventional and disparate materials, and bonded fabrics.

The show opened with a porcelain effect gown created by layering glass organza to mimic the sheen of real porcelain and constructed without traditional waist seams or set-in sleeves to heighten the glazed effect.

Another dress utilized around 500 real ceramic pieces, fixed onto an organza underlay. The dress (which took over 300 hours to create) was first toiled in calico, then a pattern was cut and ceramics were then fired to the shape of the pattern pieces. The ceramics were then glazed and fired a second time, before being broken by hand to create the pieces for the dress. The pieces were then individually rounded off and fixed to the organza base.

Maison Margiela by Glenn Martens Fall 2026

Variations on the classic tuxedo — arguably the biggest trend of the season — made multiple appearances throughout the collection: from a jacket with an upside down shawl collar, its edges left raw like a scarf, to black and white version fused to a layer of second skin jersey, to  an Edwarian tailcoat painted bianchetto, baked and the cracked open and paired with matching evening pants and boots.

Two gold gowns offered a playful contrast in materials and with the first made from five pieces, all gilded in gold leaf and taking 200 hours to complete, and the other covered in over 150,000 hand-applied gold stars, requiring the work of 34 artisans over 2975 hours.

There was a waistcoat made from a 19th century tapestry that once covered a canapé sofa, discovered in Chartres, France and a dress made from vintage crochet shawls, inspired by images of household fabrics found in the Maison Margiela archives. There were also multiple pieces made from upcycled leather jackets deconstructed and put back together into patchworked, sometimes Edwardian-inflected forms.

The show concluded with a dress made from a 19th century painting that was found on the floor of a flea market. The painting was beyond any sort of meaningful restoration, so Martens and his team set about giving it new a life. First, restorers spent a week fixing its state of disrepair, to ensure no more paint would fall from it. Then, a gown was constructed without once cutting into its 5 metre-long canvas. The painting was draped over a double corset, one fitted to the body, then another standing away, over which the painting could take its shape. The painting thus remained entirely intact so that, should one wish, they can remove it from the underlying corsety and hung it on
the wall.

Maison Margiela by Glenn Martens Fall 2026

This sort of sensitivity to the past — this reverence, respect for, and fascination with what came before — is all too rare in fashion these days, as too often incoming designers to established brands throw out everything that came before in an attempt to make their mark, a mark that is often shallow, tacky, and all too quickly overwritten by the next designer who inevitably takes their place. Something different is occurring at Margiela, though. Martens is secure enough and talented enough to build upon what came before him in a way that even Galliano – who loves a historical reference but never seemed particularly interested in the Margiela of it all — never quite managed (gorgeous as his collection were). This is only Martens’ third collection for Margiela, yet it may just go down in history as the moment he took his place as one of the greatest designers of his generation. And the best part is it seems like he still has so much to give.

Check out the rest of the collection below.

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