Glenn Martens is a designer of dichotomies. Where clothes are deconstructed, a community is built. Where industry insiders gather for the runway’s sacred ritual, design students and local artists are granted access and participation. Where tweed keeps others in the past, clown-like smiles and fringed raw edges play sly tricks to bring it into the present.
Diesel’s Fall/Winter 2025 collection exemplified the best of Martens’ contrasting sartorial language. Denim was laminated, lacquered, and shredded in every which way Martens could think. Houndstooth sets were woven, layered, and tattered as if emerging from the ashes of the familiar afterparty that follows getting trashed at a stiff upper-lipped event. Paper mache-like button downs and bumsters barely clung to the model’s bodies, while boiled leather jackets were permanently creased with wire hems, dispelling all attempts at saving face for the party’s strict dress code. Alien contacts and bug-eyed sunglasses helped create feelings of otherness that satirized the clothing’s traditionally formal materials.
Diesel disciples might have also recognized a familiar towering figure on the runway. Conceptually designed by Studio Dennis Vanderbroeck, the world record breaking inflatable doll from the brand’s Spring/Summer 2023 runway, described as “The Diesel Democracy,” was repurposed, this time with a graphic twist.
Speaking backstage, Glenn Martens explained that he harnessed the artistic power of 7,800 graffiti artists worldwide, found via an open call, to transform the sculpture into this season’s community-driven installation. The Global Street Art Collective consisted of young artists from countries including India, Italy, South Africa, China, Japan, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia who worked with full artistic freedom to paint nearly 3.2 kilometers of fabric.
Glenn Martens has broken down the industry’s unspoken boundaries in the same way he has deconstructed traditional uses of fabric. As a result, community has become a signature element of Martens’ Diesel collections. More than once the shows have been invited thousands of members of the public prioritizing tickets for design students. The brand’s FW24 collection dispelled all notions of industry secrecy, live streaming the atelier for the four days leading up to the show. Fans then tuned in from their computers, digitally plastering the walls of the set.
Whether it be his work at Diesel or Y/Project, erosion and collective design are principle features of Martens’ design, only adding to the anticipation surrounding his upcoming debut at Maison Margiela.
See Diesel’s Fall/Winter 2025 collection in the gallery above, and stay tuned to Hypebeast for more Milan Fashion Week coverage.
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