Two subcultures are mainly represented amongst MMM’s customers. The “Bobos“are the new urban upper class, they love wearing brands without showing-off, and it corresponds to the no-logos cult of MMM. They love the idea of a “confidential luxury” and unachieved aesthetics like the nude beauty look of Charlotte Gainsbourg for example. Bobos are aware of the environmental issues, they buy organic food and recycle: the idea of making new clothes with old ones is in MMM’s DNA (“Artisanal” clothes line). More recently, the Hip-Hop subculture started to be represented when the rapper Kanye West started to talk about the brand and went on stage with the famous crystal-embellized facemask. The rapper Future even created a song called “Martin Margiela”. This is quite paradoxal considering that Hip-Hop is all about bling-bling and MMM about Belgian minimalism. But we all know that in analysing trends, there is always a small counter trend to the global trend.
It seems that MMM discreetly tries to reach new customers and to make its brand more accessible by sharing its avant-gardist vision of fashion. The collaboration with H&M highly increased the brand reputation and the launched of MMM’s perfume “Untitled” (sold in all the big department stores) also popularized the brand while keeping its rigorist and minimalist reputation.