In a season where theatrics frequently steal the show, Glenn Martens’ Maison Margiela FW25 couture collection reminded us that true enchantment is found in the mastery of craft. Martens used an alchemist’s touch to shape fabric into form, crafting a story of deconstruction, lavishness, and drama. Each outfit was a material meditation, with molten metallics, waxy textures, and sculptural drapery transforming the runway into a wearable surrealist dreamscape. This collection did not shout for attention; rather, it haunted. It shimmered like memory and decay, both futuristic and old. In this piece, we’ll look at the collection’s craftsmanship, historical background, and what it means for the growing future of couture.
Before the first model stepped onto the runway, the tone had already been set by the audience itself—a curated crowd of fashion’s most discerning eyes, seated in reverent anticipation.
Cardi B, Couture’s Nancy Drew in Latex Noir
Cardi B elevated detective noir with a belted latex trench. Her ensemble, with large lapels, glossy sheen, and boots designed for stomping through secrets, parts Nancy Drew and Parisian spy. Cardi’s arrival, complete with a beret, narrow sunglasses, and statement earrings, felt like the first scene of a mystery thriller set in a fashion house. This was not cosplay; it was commanding.
Dianna Agron’s Effortless Glamour
Among the sea of sculpted silhouettes and theatrical couture, Dianna Agron arrived with a look that murmured rather than shouted—and nevertheless enthralled. The Maison Margiela suit, a study in fluid layering and muted tones, demonstrated the brand’s ability to incorporate avant-garde principles into wearable designs. It was a hint to the collection’s experimental side, softened with a touch of Parisian nonchalance.
Pom Klementieff’s Office Siren Moment
Pom Klementieff’s Maison Margiela front-row outfit demonstrated corporate rebellion to perfection. In keeping with the house’s deconstructed concept, she combined menswear-inspired tailoring with purposeful distortion and layered textures. With an oversized blazer, ripped shirt hems, and pinstripe trousers. With a brown leather purse carelessly swung in hand, this was boardroom-meets-runway brilliance, if the office was located in the Garment District and operated on chaos and charm.
Natasha Poly’s CEO Energy in Margiela Menswear
Natasha Poly entered the Maison Margiela Artisanal as if she owned the brand—and the building. Her style radiated executive authority with a distinct Margiela touch, as she wore an enormous checkered suit with razor-sharp lapels and a pristine white button-down. It was as if the CEO had left her office mid-strategic meeting to grace the front row. It was silent power dressing—serious, sculptural, and obviously authoritative.
Tessa Thompson’s Siren Seduction
Tessa Thompson exuded cinematic allure at the Maison Margiela 2025 show, wearing a sculptural black gown that spoke gothic romance with a modern twist. The asymmetrical cut, translucent arm wraps, and enormous velvet bow on her shoulder transformed the silhouette into something softly frightening. Thompson embodied Margiela with her cascading braided hair and smokey, soft-glam finish, rather than simply wearing it. A masterclass in beguiling minimalism.
Ivy Getty’s Plastic Heiress Fantasy
Ivy Getty enters the Maison Margiela Artisanal 2025 show dressed in a tangerine daydream, equal parts vintage ingénue and future art piece. The style, complete with opera-length leather gloves and frosty appeal, toyed with camp while maintaining a dreamlike composure. It was giving, “old money clone goes rogue,” and it seemed to work.
Before the runway lights dimmed, the front row provided a glimpse into the Margiela universe: refined, quirky, and dripping with character. But once the show started, it was clear: the models may have walked, but the couture? It carried.
Couture from Another Dimension
This look appeared not only from the past, but from another dimension entirely. The model, dressed in a faded ivory gown with sculptural draping and capped with a galaxy of dazzling face decoration, seemed a character out of a noir mystery, a sci-fi story, and a medieval fantasy all at once. Martens did more than just design a dress; he summoned a being. The blend of elegance and distortion. Fashion was no longer simply wearable; it was transcending.
The Art of Disguise: Margiela’s Masked Reality
Each mask in the Maison Margiela Artisanal FW25 collection was a stunning work of surrealism and storytelling—less accessory, more relic. The masks were gilded in gold, adorned with rubies, and covered with weathered landscape prints and crystalline armor. Glenn Martens made masks for confrontation, not fantasy. These weren’t escape mechanisms; they were revelations, revealing the weird, horrific, and divine all in a single molded shell.
Ghosts of Time: Couture as Haunting Memory
Each appearance reflected a different age, but none belonged to a single time. Consider antique writings ripped from church walls, rotting pictures in a flooded ballroom, and wax figures melting beneath abandoned chandeliers. Fabrics worn like relics, with some brittle and charred, and others fluid and ethereal. Rigid shapes gave way to delicate, illusionary drapery; corsetry resembled second skin or disintegrating sculpture. Martens did not dress models; instead, he unearthed them, like objects of beauty long buried. This was not nostalgia. It was resurrection.
Golden Phantom: When Fashion Possesses Form
There are runway looks and apparitions. Martens’ sculptural gold piece for Maison Margiela’s FW25 Artisanal exhibition went well beyond couture. With its crinkled velvet texture and bulbous form, it seemed more of a living relic than a garment, like a cursed statue stepping directly out of a forgotten museum or a dream sequence in a Baroque horror film. The faceless mask concealed its inhuman presence, transforming the model into a nameless, luminous being. It was not intended to be worn. It was intended to haunt.
Couture Ghosts in Plastic
The final display resembled an odd ritual—part fashion, part fever dream. These figures, shrouded in sheer vinyl shells and enveloped in translucent gauze, moved as if they were spectral beings caught between times and dimensions. The plastic covering had a clinical, almost surgical look to it, but it nevertheless read couture. The juxtaposition between synthetic brilliance and soft human form gave each model the appearance of a preserved antique, proving Martens’ design for a world beyond our own.
In a show where memory dressed the body and ghosts walked the runway, Maison Margiela’s FW25 Artisanal Collection proved that couture isn’t just about fabric—it’s about feeling. Martens stitched together fragments of time, identity, and emotion into a spectacle that was both deeply unsettling and unspeakably beautiful. This wasn’t fashion for the faint of heart—it was fashion as possession, as resurrection, as ritual. And long after the models vanished, the collection remained—etched into the psyche like a half-forgotten dream.
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