NOW OPEN: MM⑥ Hits Bleecker Street With Maison Martin Margiela Lite

Here's what struck us about the world's first MM⑥ by Maison Martin Margiela boutique that opened yesterday on Bleecker Street:

• It's the first Margiela store we have seen that actually puts the logo of the brand above the door like a regular store instead of on some kind of arcane prop sign. It's fitting, since this less expensive line is the only Margiela collection that puts its name on the label instead of leaving it blank or using the recognizable but cryptic matrix of digits that usually signifies the designer. In other words, MM⑥ is the more "normal" version of this brand, with prices that fall in the contemporary range, and product that reflects a more commercial point of view. It's Margiela Lite.
• The salespeople still wear long white aprons as in other Margiela boutiques, but with three of them in the tiny store at once, there hardly seems to be room for any customers. Welcome to Bleecker Street!
• We are obsessed with the carpeting (which we weren't able to photograph ourselves due the aforementioned abundance of staff). Somehow, they were able to photo-print a concrete or marble pattern onto plush carpet so it has the look of stone or cement without the noise of the hard floor under the feet of salespeople who have to be on their feet all day. Genius.
• Like anything Margiela, the store design is a little quirky, but not nearly as weird as as the house's main Margiela store on Washington Street. There is still that super-flattering fluorescent lighting, though, so you won't feel too cozy. The design features pressed tin ceiling tiles that have migrated down the walls to form flip-down shelves and then make display and seating modules in the center of the store.

While this may be the first MM⑥ store, there will be another opening in Paris within the next few months, and, presumably, many more soon to follow. What you will see on Bleecker is another part of the ongoing process of turning Maison Martin Margiela, once the label (or non-label, as the case may be) of a slightly obscure, highly intellectual and Belgian designer, into a major commercial force. With the brand is backed by Diesel chief Renzo Rosso's Only The Brave group, which in fairness have gone to great efforts to preserve Margiela's signature peculiarities, expect a rollout of MM⑥ to happen at a faster pace rather than a slower one.

MM⑥ by Maison Martin Margiela 363 Bleecker Street between West 10th & Charles Streets, West Village