Maison Margiela reinvents its digital platform: maisonmargiela.com

Maison Margiela reinvents its digital platform, maisonmargiela.com. The new virtual flagship store proposes a state-of-the-art transformation of online shopping by rethinking fashion’s relationship with the traditions of E-Commerce. The site is conceived by Creative Director John Galliano with the consultation of image-maker Nick Knight, SHOWstudio, and in collaboration with experience design studio International Magic. The digital space embraces the electronic shopping experience as fashion’s most inspiring visual frontier. As an accessible and immediate point of connectivity between the Maison and its clientele, it is approached with a depth, soul and poetry historically reserved for the runway and editorial expression. The reimagined channel is an instinctive response to the investigations of life in the digital age intrinsic to the practice of John Galliano at Maison Margiela. The online store serves 45 countries worldwide.

“I believe that E-Commerce is the most exciting fashion frontier we have today and where our creative energy should now be focused,” says Nick Knight.

Departing the archaic associations of E-Commerce, the virtual platform reimagines the idea of online shopping in a digital depiction of the physical in-store experience. Devoted to showcasing clothes and accessories in movement, maisonmargiela.com stages an imaginative cyber-salon designed to engage the senses and offer the client an immersive virtual encounter with the Maison and its collections. In bestowing the online store with the same aspiration, ideals and care that course through every other vein of the house, John Galliano elevates the habitual components of the digital emporium through exquisite graphic content created in collaboration with the creative talent and muses connected to Maison Margiela.

As well as a shopping destination, over time the platform will grow to serve as a comprehensive source of knowledge on the house and its practices.

The digital flagship evokes the curved and tactile lines of Maison Margiela’s physical stores and is consistently founded in movement. Its landing page invites visitors to scroll through the pyramidical structure that underpins the house, with moving imagery of the Artisanal Collection (haute couture) featured at the top followed by the Co-Ed Collection (ready-to-wear), the Avant-Première (pre-collection) and the Icons collection. Each garment or accessory is showcased within imperfectly framed thumbnails nodding at the warped interior language of the house’s stores. As a reflection of the genderless approach to garments, muses wear face veils innate to the grammar of Maison Margiela.

Styled by Tom Guinness and captured in still and moving imagery by photographer Britt Lloyd, each design in the digital store is displayed with the cadence of a real-life experience in multiple turning and moving body views achieved in an intricate creative process that utilises turntables and travelators. Through green screens, muses appear on cloud filled backdrops as if walking through skyscapes, their movement evoking the body language known from the Maison’s fashion shows. The body views of each item are demonstrated in several windows of moving imagery showcasing the design from every angle, with added static detail shots and still life photography. Accessories are pictured in movement on muses as well as in still life on pedestals, filling the frame of the picture in accordance with size options. Every garment and accessory is depicted in line with the vision of John Galliano as originally proposed in the collection’s presentation.

MM6, the standalone line under Maison Margiela, is represented on the digital platform through its own distinct identity, directed by International Magic. Reflective of the line’s contemporary irreverence and disregard for trends, MM6 garments and accessories are pictured in purposely static imagery nodding wittily at the classic notion of the ‘look book’ and imbued with slight hints of movement. It is an archival approach that echoes the line’s subtle nods to the Maison’s history and affirms the MM6 ethos of tying the refined to the commonplace. Casting and size ranges honour the line’s values of creating clothing for all.

The evolution of Maison Margiela’s E-Commerce site is part of OTB’s MOON omni-channel platform. MOON is an innovative integrated operating model which was first launched with Diesel in 2020. MOON offers brands of the OTB Group a completely customised, fluid digital shopping experience.