Today, after yet another long-winded Marketing campaign,  H&M launched its capsule collection in collaboration with Maison Martin Margiela.

It’s been 8 years since the first collaboration was set between the swedish retailer and the big Luxury brands – Karl « Modern Cardin » Lagerfeld was the first. It all sounded like a great idea back in the day ; High-End Luxury brands gifting the mass with Fashion designs at low prices. Like Christmas every November.

But 10 years onwards, they’re just taking the piss.

Martin Margiela used to be the kind of designer with purpose and defined principles. He created a brand that would stand out for its conceptual approach and complex designs.  Maison Martin Margiela was an eponymous brand  who didn’t care much for branding codes (tagless collections, avoiding personal fame, rejecting the media). And so on. Anyways, that was before it was bought over by some massive Luxury Group – OTB Group.

I find it highly ridiculous that a brand like this would fail to carry through its raison d’être just to sell fast fashion » knockoffs » to the mass consumer market. I could go on about how it’s all a question of large scale exposure, huge Fashion Groups hungry for more, and consumers buying into it all, but as I am part of the latter, I can’t complain too much ( I do shop at Zara, after all).

But I think my main point is that Fashion houses are losing their identity and their credibility with the whole nonsense of  » democratization of Fashion ».  And we consumers should think twice before running to spend our cash on these collaborations.

We’re not buying Margiela’s legacy nor are we buying High-End fashion by doing so.