Dear Shaded Viewers,
The story this time is set in a train station. Specifically, Milano Centrale – the most ‘train-station’ of train stations. A place of familiar rituals. Some are running to catch the train, some are fixed in front of the departure boards, some are looking for a taxi. Familiar silhouettes pass by – a fleeting blur, a moment forgotten until the next time. Yet, it is also the most romantic.
Photographed by Philippine Chaumont and Agathe Zaerpour, MM6 Maison Margiela’s new Autumn Winter 2026 campaign brings characters that you brush shoulders with every day into the spotlight. Recalling the mood of a romcom, we meet the corporate intern in the pencil skirt juggling two coffees, the unbothered teen with earphones and hair covering his eyes, the serious man whose gaze flits between the newspaper and his watch. All these characters lead such different lives, yet their worlds collide in this space. Chaumont and Zaerpour’s beautifully grainy film photographs create this chance encounter for them. Unbeknownst to them, they live in this short narrative together.
Recognisable items, the staples: the loosely fit blazer, the denim jacket, the well-loved leather trench, the red gingham skirt, the snug jumper. Clothes we know, on people we almost remember. Topped off with the Margiela trademark sunglasses, they give the wearer that extra sense of anonymity and invisibility – in this vacuum of paused time where you can be as much of a nobody or a somebody as you like.
Ultimately, this illusion of the romanticised everyday is never broken. We are blissfully contained in this warm, gold-tinted perception of life in one of the busiest places in a city – the train station.
Later,
Estelle
