The spirit of discovery set the stage for Maison Margiela’s Fall/Winter 2026 collection. Presented in Shanghai, the House looked back to its founding years, bringing its ready-to-wear and Artisanal collections together in a single show. The collection paired highly coveted, limited production “couture” pieces with styles available in stores around the world.
The collection looks to the past while finding new ways to make it relevant. Vintage garments, Edwardian references and discarded textiles are reworked through Margiela’s signature language of deconstruction, reconstruction and anonymity. Tailoring is deliberately disrupted, tailcoats lose their tails, double-breasted jackets and trenches merge with second-skin jersey, while leather, tweed and velvet are fused together to create unexpected textures and silhouettes. Draping is pushed into unfamiliar territory, with rigid furniture fabrics bonded onto already-draped garments and then cut along their folds. Knitwear is deliberately distorted, with unexpected moth-eaten edges, Edwardian sleeves and sculpted boiled wool adding to the collection’s sense of imperfection. Across the runway, disparate materials are joined, separated and reassembled, creating clothes that feel less constructed than discovered. Every look is completed with an Artisanal mask, reinforcing Margiela’s enduring fascination with anonymity and turning the cast into a collection of mysterious, almost otherworldly characters.
A key accessory introduced this season is the men’s Float shoe, which explores an exercise in proportion and optical illusion. Designed with an upper that sits above a significantly smaller sole, the silhouette creates the impression that the shoe is suspended in mid-air. Available in brushed, patent and distressed leather, the design plays with Margiela’s ongoing fascination with transforming familiar wardrobe staples into something unexpected. The result is a distinctive, almost weightless take on traditional footwear that brings an element of surrealism to the collection.
Marking Margiela’s first show in China, this presentation also launched Maison Margiela/folders, twelve days of exhibitions and activations across four cities. The show opened with an Artisinal exhibition in Shanghai, an Anonymity of masks exhibition in Beijing, a Tabi exhibition in Chengdu, and a Bianchetto experience in Shenzhen, which explores the white overpaint technique the House has been using since 1989. It is a fitting introduction and exploration to a collection built on the idea that nothing is ever truly discarded, it can always be reconsidered, reconstructed and made new.
