Glenn Martens has done three Maison Margiela shows now, and two of them were outrageously dramatic. This one is a clearer, more commercial proposition, and I think that is a smart move once you have shown what you can do. His idea was to go back to the anti. As he put it, "The hard and the soft. This kind of contradiction in fabric."

He wants a strong concept in every garment without being scary, and I think the result is the friendliest Margiela in a while. Trenches, gray T-shirts and draped jersey dresses get hard, balcony-like inserts of interfacing in front, and it works.

About one in five looks wear knee-high boots, so let's begin with the shoes.

The thing I love most about this house is that it was once an insiders' secret for really well-cut ordinary clothes. You can feel that again here, in a white overcoat that stands stiff at the front, an open checked shirt, and high-waisted tailored ski pants.

Denim is only a handful of looks, so it is not the story, but I like it as the everyday counterweight to all that stiffness. A faded or frayed pair of jeans with a folded-lapel jacket is the kind of contradiction Martens means.

He said the house has to speak to a far wider audience than it did in Martin's day, and I think plain clothes that still have an idea inside them are exactly how you do it.

The florals are where the show gets its approachability. Martens identified them as sixties-era brocades, and about a quarter of the looks carry one. They lend themselves to column skirts tied with the typical Margiela cotton tape ribbon, which shows up at the waist in a handful of looks.

I adore that tape. It is such a small, odd detail, and it makes a skirt look half-assembled in the best way.

More than half the looks carry a bag, which says a lot about how ready this collection is for real life. There is still a trace of Galliano-era thinking too, with a red lace slip laminated with vinyl and tucked inside a pink satin coat.

Martens could not quite hold himself back. There is an evening dress with a whole family's worth of silver squashed into a breastplate, and a sculptural, draped gown with swags and a flowing cape that recalls a baroque monument.

He said it with a laugh: he is the guy who is in churches all day long, and opulence is him. I love that he admits it.

That is what stays with me. Underneath the careful commercial edit, there is still someone who cannot be a minimalist. I would wear the velvet skirt with a plain gray tee, and keep a little opulence for myself.