Martin Margiela is having a proper clear-out. For most people, this means binning the stained tees cluttering up the wardrobe and maybe sticking an old bike up for sale. But, for one of the most influential fashion designers of the 20th century, it means letting go of hundreds of grail-worthy archive pieces alongside the blueprints to one of the most important clothing brands in the history of the fashion industry. 

Last week’s announcement that Martin Margiela is auctioning some old memorabilia unsurprisingly drove fashion nerds into a frenzy. How often does one of the great designers release their archives to the public? Well, never. As Maurice Auction, the company behind the sale, notes, “This is the first time a living creator has directly collaborated with an auction house to offer their personal archive of clothing and designs.”

As usual, Margiela is an innovator. 

There’s a lot to pick from. And the just-released list of items for sale doesn’t disappoint. Over 200 items are going under the hammer on July 9, dating from 1984, four years before Maison Margiela was founded, up until Martin departed his eponymous house in 2008.

The selection also goes far beyond just vintage clothes, though it’s packed with plenty of standouts. These include Martin's personal white cotton apron, which all the Margiela staff would wear, a 1991 Tabi boot, estimated to fetch up to €50,000 (around $58.250) that visitors of Margiela's first group exhibition at Paris' Galliera museum drew over, and a series of vales that obscured model's faces so that, as Margiela stated in a press release, "attention is purely focused on the clothes without any distraction of the person's face."

Each item provides an insight into the influential techniques invented and honed by Margiela’s maison, but most revealing are a series of photos, drawings, and objects. These are sacred texts of avant-garde fashion.

Most notable is a 1987 dossier with Margiela's plans for his then-fictional fashion house, covered in white cotton fabric, just as much of his Paris atelier would later be. The original folder was stolen on a train, causing Martin to recreate it by memory, but then found and returned by the police a year later. It is a look inside the mind that created Maison Margiela.

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