After more than a decade since leaving Maison Martin Margiela, Martin Margiela takes a look back at his 20 years of work as fashion designer. Martin Margiela has never shown his face to the public, preferring the clothes to speak for themselves. Likewise, in this fashion documentary the designer picks pivotal pieces from his collections. The pieces and the commentaries by leading fashion figures, such as Jean-Paul Gaulthier, Carine Roitfeld, and Lidewij Edelkoort, make abunda... (Full plot summary below)
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After more than a decade since leaving Maison Martin Margiela, Martin Margiela takes a look back at his 20 years of work as fashion designer. Martin Margiela has never shown his face to the public, preferring the clothes to speak for themselves. Likewise, in this fashion documentary the designer picks pivotal pieces from his collections. The pieces and the commentaries by leading fashion figures, such as Jean-Paul Gaulthier, Carine Roitfeld, and Lidewij Edelkoort, make abundant Martin Margiela's lasting impact on fashion.
Leave your thoughts about Martin Margiela: In His Own Words.
| TimeStephanie ZacharekHere, the effect of merely hearing his voice and watching his hands is so intimate that we walk away with an almost tactile sense of who Martin Margiela is, the way we confidently, yet only sort of, know what the man in the moon looks like. His mystery becomes our secret too. |
| The Observer (UK)Simran HansThe use of the notoriously media-shy Margiela’s warm, serious spoken voice helps to create intimacy, even though we never see his face. |
| RogerEbert.comMatt FagerholmLike the director’s 2017 profile of Dries Van Noten, Martin Margiela: In His Own Words explores how its titular subject is driven by ideas rather than ego or a desire for stardom. |
| Slant MagazineDiego SemereneReiner Holzemer’s adulation of his subject feels most credible because he spends a lot of time focusing on the clothes. |
| VarietyJessica KiangThe grandest irony to emerge is that despite its unquestionable sincerity, soft-spoken iconoclast Martin Margiela’s insistent non-image may yet turn out to be fashion’s canniest bit of image-making of all. |
| The New York TimesJon CaramanicaIt is a poem about the ways in which the speed and ubiquity demanded by the internet have squeezed certain creative wells dry, perhaps irreparably. |
| IndieWireRyan LattanzioWhile Margiela’s visions likely deserve a more radical treatment onscreen, Holzemer’s film offers perhaps the most complete insight yet into one of fashion’s most elusive geniuses. |
| The Hollywood ReporterFrank ScheckThose not enthralled by Margiela's wittily iconoclastic but gimmicky avant-garde designs (and I must confess to being one of them) will probably find this documentary less than compelling. Like so many fashion-themed docs, Martin Margiela: In His Own Words will play best to afficionados who will be grateful for this insightful look at its reclusive subject. |
| The GuardianPeter BradshawReiner Holzemer has made a film that is intensely supportive and uncritical – as fashion documentaries tend to be – and to those of us who are outside the fashion world, it can be a bit opaque. Yet it is refreshing to hear creativity discussed with such seriousness and commitment. |
