At Paris Couture Week FW25, the subterranean echoes of fashion history stirred anew as Glenn Martens unveiled his first Artisanal collection for Maison Margiela — and with it, cracked open the house’s past to let something strange, beautiful, and unsettling rise.

Staged in the shadowy depths of Le Centquatre, the same venue where Martin Margiela once took his final bow, Martens did more than pay homage — he exhumed Margiela’s ghosts and gave them new, raw skin. “Artisanal 2025” was not a collection that whispered elegance. It snarled, slouched, and shimmered with unearthed energy — like couture dragged from a dream half-remembered, half-feared.

The set itself resembled a forgotten theatre: papier-mâché floors, faded architectural prints on the walls, and crooked chairs cast about like relics from a disrupted ritual. In this eerie ambiance, Martens’ co-ed creations emerged as if plucked from post-apocalyptic archives, wearing the grime of time as proudly as gold.

Trench coats sculpted from transparent plastic, oil-painted jeans with stiffened, frozen belts, and shift dresses of discarded costume jewelry told stories of rebirth — of couture that refused to stay pristine. Antique wallpaper florals appeared cracked and soiled, their decay romanticized into poetry. A mother-of-pearl satin gown, with its head shrouded in spectral fabric, nodded to the haunting melancholy of Dead Can Dance’s "Within the Realm of a Dying Sun."

Martens leaned into the surreal, layering illusion tulle over floral and game prints, giving them ghostlike movement, while other garments bloomed in metallic duchess satin, so voluminous they felt otherworldly — part armor, part apparition. Face coverings returned, echoing Margiela’s legacy, but Martens pushed further into the eerie: plastic masks that seemed suffocating, metal head shells, and silhouettes that teetered between wearable fashion and moving installation art.
This was not a collection seeking approval — it was demanding emotional response. Uncomfortable. Beautiful. Uneasy. Daring. Martens made couture a site of confrontation, defying the hushed neutrality of "quiet luxury" with garments that were loud in texture, layered in meaning, and defiantly imperfect.

Crucially, this wasn’t art for art’s sake. A monumental shift was quietly announced: the Artisanal collection will now be available for sale — marking the first time Margiela’s couture creations leave the conceptual sphere and enter collectors' wardrobes. This radical accessibility signals a new era where intellectual fashion doesn’t just provoke — it lives.

With this debut, Glenn Martens didn’t just step into Galliano’s shoes — he cracked the pavement and planted something entirely his own. Maison Margiela Artisanal 2025 isn’t for the faint of heart, but it’s a bold reminder: true couture dares to decay, to haunt, and to howl.