Quality Craftsmanship: Details of the Margiela Artisanal Line. Martin Margiela brought forward a new perspective towards reconstruction & recycling when he introduced Line 0: The Artisanal Collection in 1988. This project was the fashion world’s initial glimpse into Margiela’s genius, as he created garments, fabrics, and accessories reworked by hand for women & men that would defy all the status quos and the social norms of fashion in the late 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. The goal was to give new life to these items, as Margiela and his ateliers would often transform raw materials and second-hand garments into unique wearable pieces. Garment labels featured the number “0” circled, a motif that is infamously unique to the Margiela fashion house and was a method to differentiate and group pieces together. Each piece featured an explanation card that would provide extensive context to the history of the garments, such as quantity created, colors, hours spent on its creation process, and much more. Margiela and his ateliers viewed the Artisanal collections as a “quest to transform garments” because they wanted a brand new design challenge. In return, vests were made out of everyday household objects and jackets were made from various military-distributed garments. It was truly a phenomenon in the fashion world that helped build the foundation for Martin Margiela’s innovative and pioneering endeavors. As a lifelong fanatic about Martin Margiela and his life history, I strongly believe the Artisanal Collection changed the trajectory of fashion and its progress through time. Bias aside, the concepts of reworking and reconstructing items simply was not part of luxury fashion during those times. It removed the prevalent stigma towards recycling and reuse in luxury fashion while showcasing a new fashion potential for random everyday objects like a porcelain plate or a pair of gloves and socks. It is very hard to replicate this same process nowadays without being deemed a derivative or a copy of Margiela’s Artisanal process, even though it happens all the time. We can only wonder what Martin Margiela thinks of it now. Writer: @artvanstanza