Maison Martin Margiela
Description
The whitewashed “work-in-progress” space that's home to Parisian iconoclast Martin Margiela's first U.S. boutique is as purposefully frayed at the edges as the designer's fashions. Behind an entrance marked only by spray-painted flowers, a deli freezer houses the cash register; painted suitcases and saran-wrapped boxes serve as de facto displays; and the entire space is lit by umbrella photo lights—an appropriate backdrop for Margiela's look-at-me designs. Peruse the designer's famously deconstructed duds, including a women's duct-tape-covered blazer ($1,450), a silk-flower-strewn blouse ($595) and split-toe denim boots ($745). A “graffiti wall” separates the women's section from the men's, which houses such stunners as a heavy double-zip funnel-neck vest ($500).