Martin Margiela leaves namesake house

After month's of speculation, Martin Margiela has confirmed he is leaving the fashion house he founded in Paris in 1988.

Women's Wear Daily reported the Belgian designer, who celebrated his 20th anniversary last year, will have no successor.

“We want to stay avant-garde, and provocative, but without a new creative director,” said Giovanni Pungetti, chief executive officer of Maison Martin Margiela. It was mentioned that Margiela "has recently poured creative energies into painting and wished to walk away from the fashion business."

“We came to the conclusion that we didn’t want to substitute [Martin], not because he is irreplaceable, but because we are the Maison Martin Margiela,” Pungetti said in the WWD article. “He always liked to say to his design team, ‘You are more Margiela than me."

In a fame-obsessed business, Margiela was known for being so avant-garde that he never showed his face to his fashion devotees. Rather than flaunting an in-your-face logo, the Margiela signature is the basted white threads that show on the other side of his label.