In today’s crowded fashion landscape, designers at leading luxury fashion houses have to wear many different hats. They need to set trends and ignite fresh ideas on the catwalk, appeal to the demands of their spending couture clientele, create and sell products on a more mainstream level. All the while, they have to also stay relevant by dressing celebrities for the red carpets, crafting relationships with buzzy brand ambassadors, and conceptualizing pop culture-shaking campaigns that make fashion-as-entertainment. It’s a tall order, though there’s a set few that have consistently bucked the trend. Some labels, like Maison Margiela , have succeeded by simply marching to the beat of their own drum.

Since founding his namesake brand in 1988, Martin Margiela was notoriously press shy and

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