Maison Margiela Marks 20 Years of Its Ebisu, Tokyo Store With a New "folders" Chapter

Maison Margiela has released a new chapter of MaisonMargiela/folders to mark 20 years at 2-8-13 Ebisu Minami in Tokyo. According to the house's Instagram, the first files went into its open-to-all Dropbox archive on October 20, with more due on November 5.

The story starts in September 2000, twelve years after the house was founded, when Margiela opened its first-ever store in a traditional house in a residential corner of Ebisu rather than in Paris, Antwerp or Brussels. FashionUnited notes that luxury brands of the time favored districts such as Omotesando and Ginza, while this house sat about 20 minutes by car from the nearest luxury shopping area. In 2006 the store moved a five-minute walk away to 2-8-13, a former electrical products factory. Tokyo Art Beat reports that the team kept traces of the factory's past and the bathroom from the first store.

The new chapter gathers memories from store staff, some of whom have been there since the start, and takes a closer look at the Tabi, the split-toe boot Margiela reinterpreted from the Japanese jika-tabi work shoe and showed at the house's first runway presentation in 1988. It also includes interviews with Tabi collectors and Ebisu locals, plus a portrait of the district.

On November 5, a limited-edition zine will be handed out in the store and around Ebisu, and published online. Tokyo Art Beat adds that the Ebisu distribution is for that day only, and in-store copies last while supplies do. The same day, a Line 2 installation titled "Unravelled Memory, Rewoven Future" opens inside the store and runs to November 15. Curated by art historian Yuko Hasegawa, it pairs Tokyo-based artist Mio Suzuki with the French tapestry manufacturer Les Manufactures Nationales, Sèvres & Mobilier National.

All chapters of the archive are available through the Maison Margiela website. The store itself is in Tokyo, but the archive is online, so it can be read from New York too.

(Details are drawn from points that agree across reports by Wallpaper*, FashionUnited, Tokyo Art Beat.)