The Margiela Documentary is Finally Getting a Canadian Premiere
Since The September Issue debuted over a decade ago, fashion documentaries have become big business. Every year or so the industry seems to pump out another, and they range in quality from atelier-approved puff pieces (Dior and I) to heartfelt, human interest stories (Bill Cunningham New York).
The latest of these We Margiela, a fashion documentary that purports to reveal “the untold and intimate story of the enigmatic and singular fashion house Maison Martin Margiela.” A member of the legendary Antwerp Six, Belgian designer Martin Margiela founded his label in 1987 and kept up a notoriously reclusive lifestyle -- he refused to be photographed or interviewed by the press -- until it was revealed in 2009 by the New York Times that he had left his namesake label “many years” previously.
Margiela’s reticence to reveal his identity during his reign imbued the label with a form of authorlessness. It was possible to imagine that pieces as unprecedented as tabi boots (whose roots lie in traditional Japanese footwear) had simply sprung from the earth fully formed as opposed to incubated by a human imagination.
If the trailer is any indication, the ‘we’ in We Margiela will focus on the collective of designers who worked alongside, and eventually became Margiela after his departure.
The premiere Canadian screening of We Margiela will take place at 4pm on November 10th at the Fox Theatre in Toronto. It will be hosted by Archival Toronto, a startup that hosts designer vintage pop-up events.
“We believe giving young creatives the resources and access they need to learn from industry-changing talents such as Martin Margiela is key to inspiring a new wave of creativity and innovation,” says Carl Chiang, the founder of Archival Toronto
Tickets are on sale at Eventbrite now.
Isabel Slone is a fashion journalist and critic based in Toronto. She is author of the newsletter Freak Palace.