Graduating from Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts in the 1980s, Martin Margiela (and his contemporaries in the Antwerp Six) transformed global fashion with his aggressive restatement of traditional fashion design and a polemical approach to luxury trends. Working first with the house of Gaultier, Margiela absorbed the radical design of Japanese deconstruction, making it wholly his own with the founding of his own label in 1988. Margiela propounds a singular, enigmatic look, moving beyond the recognizable tropes of deconstruction - a monochromatic palette, outsized garments, non-traditional fabrics, exposed seams, or roughly appliquéd details - to develop a fully considered worldview, one with elegance, mystery, and menace in equal measure.

This book provides an inside look at the design process from a craftsman who creates pieces prized for their originality, delicacy, and daring. In the spirit of Margiela’s garments, the book is a work of art in itself, designed exclusively by Margiela and complete with silver inks, ribbon markers, a variety of lush paper types, twelve booklets, and an embroidered white-linen cover. This book provides a window onto the intimate, handmade world of a unique designer.

About the Author

Martin Margiela, born in 1957 in Leuven, Belgium, is the principal designer of his own Paris-based fashion house.

Graduating from Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts in the 1980s, Martin Margiela (and his contemporaries in the Antwerp Six) transformed global fashion with his aggressive restatement of traditional fashion design and a polemical approach to luxury trends. Working first with the house of Gaultier, Margiela absorbed the radical design of Japanese deconstruction, making it wholly his own with the founding of his own label in 1988. Margiela propounds a singular, enigmatic look, moving beyond the recognizable tropes of deconstruction - a monochromatic palette, outsized garments, non-traditional fabrics, exposed seams, or roughly appliquéd details - to develop a fully considered worldview, one with elegance, mystery, and menace in equal measure.

This book provides an inside look at the design process from a craftsman who creates pieces prized for their originality, delicacy, and daring. In the spirit of Margiela’s garments, the book is a work of art in itself, designed exclusively by Margiela and complete with silver inks, ribbon markers, a variety of lush paper types, twelve booklets, and an embroidered white-linen cover. This book provides a window onto the intimate, handmade world of a unique designer.

About the Author

Martin Margiela, born in 1957 in Leuven, Belgium, is the principal designer of his own Paris-based fashion house.

Indisputably the grande dame of modern design, Andrée Putman burst onto the scene twenty-five years ago with the graphic, black-and-white interiors of the Morgans Hotel in New York.

Since then Putman has gone on to redefine design for a diverse group of prestigious clients, including Karl Lagerfeld, the French Ministry of Culture, and the interior of the supersonic Concorde. Projects since 1980 range from museum interiors, a jewellery line for Christofle, private residences for global trendsetters, and a film set for Peter Greenaway. Putman’s work is the epitome of chic, incorporating cashmere and leather with affordable ceramic tiles and industrial metals for interiors that speak volumes for Putman’s unmistakable style of quiet luxury.

The same attention to detail is given to a simple necklace as to furniture collections, grand offices, and entire spa hotels. Putman is also credited for the revival of once-forgotten early modernist designers, such as Eileen Gray, Robert Mallet-Stevens, and Jean-Michel Frank, whose designs she put back into production and used in her famous interiors. The first comprehensive monograph on Putman’s essential designs in 20 years, Andrée Putman Complete Works will be an indispensable road map of style and elegance to all lovers of modern design.

About the Author:

Donald Albrecht is the curator of architecture and design at the Museum of the City of New York. He prepared the first retrospective of the work of Eero Saarinen and the international traveling exhibition The Work of Charles and Ray Eames. Jean Nouvel is an award-winning French architect.