At first I never thought about it, but then it drove me crazy – just how do those models wearing Maison Martin Margeila's signature full-face masks see to walk down the runway? The elaborate fashion accessories – though certainly not my favorite piece of couture – are undeniably intricate and almost impossible to imagine navigating, but the secret, apparently, is a perfectly designed pattern that leaves just enough space to see from, but not be seen.

Total face-obscuring head-encasing masks have long been a trope for Maison Martin Margiela. And for those fashion outsiders who’d never heard of Margiela or seen one of the label’s signature masks before, Kanye’s fondness for performing in them probably changed all that.

At last week’s couture show we were struck by just how intricate and, well, blinding these masked seem to be. How could the models see through the tiles, the flowers, the beaded embroidery? Lynn Yaeger, writing for The Cut, felt the same way. “The refugees on the runway at the Martin Margiela couture show will have no trouble confusing the border police, as their faces are completely covered by masks–it is difficult to even imagine how they can find their way out from backstage,” she wrote. (Read More)