Maison Martin Margiela - Bruton St

After visiting the H&M and Maison Martin Margiela collaboration I headed down to their store on Bruton Street. Firstly, there was no one in the store apart from me and a friend. After about 10 seconds a sales assistant appeared from nowhere looking a bit disheveled and wearing a lab coat(??) She then followed us around the store as we were looking and literally stared at us the whole time not saying a word. The store itself had a kind of warehouse feel to it and was a bit stripped back, which looked really good. The VM in the store was consistent throughout and there was an obvious theme. After visiting the collaboration at H&M, I can't really see any link? The VM is completely different and so is the product. The Maison Martin Margiela main line had some bright colours and some really wearable pieces like a bright pink silk shirt dress and an acid green chunky knit jumper but not many products like those in the H&M collaboration. I much preffered the design and quality of the main line product to that of the collaboration. But the sales assistant completely ruined the experience for me and was so creepy, she made it really uncomfortable. 

Like always I wasn't allowed to take pictures in the store so I only have a few pictures below: 

Maison Martin Margiela: Bruton Street, London

Maison Martin Margiela for H&M

On Thursday I visited the opening of H&M's most recent collaboration with Maison Martin Margiela at their Regents St store! The whole experience was very well organised with no pushing or drama with each group of 20 customers alotted a time slot of 10mins. I got to the store at half 10 and was told there was no way I would get to see the collection until at least 1pm as all the wristbands for the time slots were gone. I didn't bother to wait and just took as many pics as I could while I was there. I was not particuarly impressed with this collection, maybe it's because I'm not really a fan of Maison Martin Margiela anyway, I don't know. There were quite a few people who were clearly big fans of Maison Martin Margiela and were buying bags and bags full of stuff. The collection seemed to be selling quite well but there were no queues for the menswear section and when I had a look there was quite a lot of stuff left with staff bringing out more from the stock rooms regularly. I don't really feel like there was anything inspirational about the collaboration at all, although I'm sure there will be some people who disagree with me! The pieces for the collection were all very unique which I feel will look awful on the people that can't pull it off. Plus the quality of the pieces was very cheap with most being made in China yet costing quite a lot to buy! A few years ago I visited the H&M and Lanvin collaboration which was so much more impressive! The positive thing I would say about the collection is the branding was good. The bags, boxes, tickets, hangers etc were all consistent and quite simple yet looked really expensive. Below are all of the pics I took on the day:

Ladies window:

Mens Window: 

In Store:

Ladies wear: 

Mens Wear:

Product and Packaging:

H&M: Regent St, London

Maison Martin Margiela masks at Topshop Oxford Circus

The Maison Martin Margiela Haute Couture AW 12 show featured these crazy jewelled masks! This season they have been replicated on the mannequins in Topshop's mega flagship in Oxford Street. This store always make such an effort with their mannequins! 

Maison Martin Margiela Haute Couture AW12: 

 

Topshop Oxford Circus November 2012: 

Topshop: Oxford Street, London