Maison Margiela, explained: the numbers and the stitches

Who started it, who owns it, who designs it

Martin Margiela, a Belgian designer, founded the house in Paris in 1988 with Jenny Meirens, a designer and shop owner. The first show was in 1988, with clothes for spring 1989.

Renzo Rosso, chairman of the OTB group, became the majority owner in 2002. His group took full control in 2006. Martin Margiela left in 2009, and the house named no new creative director until John Galliano took the job in 2014.

Galliano stepped down in December 2024. Glenn Martens took over on 29 January 2025. Like Margiela, he studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp.

How to read the label

Inside a Maison Margiela piece is a white fabric label. It is either blank or printed with the house's numbers, and one number is circled. That circled number tells you which line the piece belongs to.

The house started the system in 1997. The numbers run from 0 to 23, but not every number is used.

In November 2026 its own list named 13 lines, and two of them were no longer active. The list has changed over the years: line 2 only began in 2025.

The four white stitches

On the outside of many Maison Margiela clothes and accessories you can see four short white stitches, set at a slant. They hold the label on the inside in place. The house first used them in its spring 1989 collection.

On its About page, the house names the four stitches first among the ideas it is built on.

MM6 or the main line

MM6 is line 6: clothes, shoes, leather goods and accessories for women and men. OTB calls it the house's contemporary line. Highsnobiety calls it the cheaper, more approachable side of Maison Margiela.

Sources disagree on when it started. Highsnobiety and Wikipedia say 1997, and the house's own list says 2004. Highsnobiety says it began regular runway shows in 2013, and that its fall 2022 collection was its first with its own menswear.

The main line is everything else on the list. Line 1 is the women's collection, line 10 the men's, line 0 the couture and line 22 the shoes.

The Tabi and the Replica sneaker

The Tabi was the house's first shoe. It has a split toe, like the Japanese tabi sock it is based on, which goes back to the 15th century.

For his first show, Margiela turned the flat tabi into a heeled boot. He dipped the soles in red paint, so the models left split toe prints on a white runway. The heel is a wide, round block, about as wide as a person's own heel.

The house says every step of making a Tabi is done by hand, by a team of 11 craftspeople, and each shoe is finished with a single white stitch. Preparing the base takes up to four hours.

Replica began in 1994, as copies of clothes that already existed. The Met holds pieces from the fall and winter 1994 to 1995 collection, which copied existing garments: some vintage, some his own earlier designs. The house still describes Replica as copies of found clothes from different sources and eras.

The Replica sneaker takes its name from that idea. The house says it is inspired by Austrian sports shoes from the 1970s.

Sneaker writers tie it to the German Army Trainer, the GAT for short, and Highsnobiety says the two are very close. Utopia lists its pairs as GATs.

The house's own description of a current pair lists a Replica label on the tongue and white stitching at the back, and says it is made in Italy.

How Maison Margiela fits

Clothes carry Italian sizes on the label. On the house's own charts, a men's 50 is a US 40 and a women's 40 is a US 4. The charts also give measurements in centimetres and inches for each size.

Shoes are in Italian sizes too, with half sizes. A men's Replica in 43 is a US 10 and fits a 28 cm foot. A women's Tabi ankle boot in 37 is a US 7 and fits a 24 cm foot.

The house's shoe charts give a foot length in centimetres beside each size, so you can measure your foot and match it.

The charts are on one page at Maison Margiela sizes. The guide to designer shoe sizes shows why the same size number can fit differently from brand to brand.

What Maison Margiela costs on within

A search on within for Maison Margiela returned 98 pieces on 13 November 2026, new and secondhand. One for MM6 returned 91.

Two examples from that day. Utopia listed a pair of Replica German Army Trainers in EU 42.5 at CAD 900. WDLT117 had an MM6 mirrored two tone zip jacket in size 38 at CAD 1,179, down from CAD 1,855.

For prices by kind of piece, see MM6 Maison Margiela prices.

Before you pay for a secondhand piece

• On clothes and accessories, look for the four white stitches on the outside, then the white label they hold on the inside.
• Read the circled number: 22 is shoes, 11 bags, 1 and 4 women's clothes, 10 and 14 men's, and 6 MM6.
• A blank label is not a warning sign on its own. The house uses blank labels too, and pieces from before 1997 have no numbers.
• Older shoes may not say 22: the house's first shoes were part of line 1.
• On a Replica sneaker, look for the Replica label on the tongue and the white stitching at the back.
• Ask for the size on the label and the piece's measurements.
• Ask where it came from, and photograph the labels before you pay.

These checks catch a piece that is plainly wrong. They do not prove a piece is real. For anything that matters, pay an authenticator for a written opinion before the return window closes.

The first checks for vintage designer covers the label, the hardware and the seams in more depth.

Maison Margiela and MM6 on within

Pieces in stock at the boutiques today, each with its price and sizes.

• Maison Margiela
• MM6 Maison Margiela
• Maison Margiela sizes
• MM6 Maison Margiela prices
• Designer shoe sizes
• Shoe construction and resoling
• Utopia, Toronto
• WDLT117, Toronto