Miley Cyrus and the Trace of Time: Maison Margiela's Autumn Winter 2025 Collection
PAGE
By PAGE Editor
Maison Margiela has unveiled its Autumn-Winter 2025 Avant-Première Collection, featuring the American artist Miley Cyrus in a series of painterly portraits shot by the renowned photographer Paolo Roversi. Captured in a stripped-back and immersive manner, Cyrus is presented within the core codes and archetypal expressions of the Maison, illustrating the collection's focus on the trace of time intrinsic to the brand's creative language.
The sentiment of the collection is founded on the principles of saving and salvaging our wardrobe, achieved through techniques developed in the Maison's distinct Artisanal atelier. The images portray cherished staples that show significant signs of use—crinkled, faded, and routinely maintained—evoking garments that are handed down through generations, continuously patched, mended, and revitalized.
Miley Cyrus wears emblematic pieces from the collection, styled to reflect the Maison’s signature silhouette. These include deconstructed tailoring and second-skin bodies, complemented by a new interpretation of the 5AC bag and the classic Tabi boots. Some images portray the artist in a state of undress, her body painted white in a direct homage to the Maison’s bianchetto technique, a white-overpaint finish introduced in 1989.
Cyrus remarked on the experience, stating, “The nudes by Paolo are so iconic and signature to his art. Standing naked for a fashion campaign felt major, all I wore was body paint and the signature painted Tabi boots. In that moment, Margiela and I became one.” Originally employed on furniture in the Margiela studio, the bianchetto technique reduces surfaces to a white canvas, enabling the revelation of the trace of time and acting as a symbolic veil that distills the essence of form and material.
The collection’s tailoring, outerwear, and workwear evoke the trace of time through painstaking fabric treatments informed by the traditional country wardrobe. Pressing techniques permanently adorn coats and parkas with lived-in folds, while reversible garments are transformed into formalwear when worn inside-out. The edges of tailoring and shirting are hand-greased for a timeworn sensibility, and wool mohair suits appear faded by the sun, with their original color preserved under collars and lapels.
Through shrink-to-fit boiling techniques, new shapes emerge: quilted linings pour out of chore jackets, gilets become body-conscious, and tracksuits reduce in size. Knitwear and denim appear worn and mended, hinting at the passage of time. The notion of inverted snobbery sets the tone for dresses, skirts, and tops, where humble construction materials are swapped with fine surface materials to create new silhouettes.
Deconstruction brings garments to life in innovative ways; a pleated wool skirt is detached from its lining, a satin dress is turned inside-out to expose its structural elements as decoration, and a flannel coat is inverted to showcase its lining. Through this process, garments splice to create new expressions, such as dickies that transform into skirts or a shirt hybridized with a skirt to form a dress.
The collection debuts a new incarnation of the Maison icon, the 5AC bag. Reconstructed as a soft, tactile silhouette without lining, the top-handle bag is treated with a waxing technique that allows signs of wear to reveal the trace of time. It appears in multiple dimensions and finishes, including the signature bianchetto effect. The collection also features the Dress-Age bag, founded in ageless dress codes and crafted in fine pebbled calfskin, offered in tote and hobo silhouettes.
Shoes in the collection are moulded to resemble timeworn footwear, bent into shape as if by use, with sculpturally warped fronts. They appear in various styles, from pointed-toe pumps to derbies, all featuring aged soles and details. The Sprinters sneaker, inspired by mid-century track runners, emerges in new colorways, with each pair individually corroded for a unique vintage feel. The spiked rubber track sole is embossed with the Maison’s numeric coding, leaving an emblematic footprint.
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT FASHION?
COMMENT OR TAKE OUR PAGE READER SURVEY
Featured
Tap to read…