Belgian native, Glenn Martens, was an unlikely couturier. He applied to the Royal Academy in Belgium with only a few furniture
sketches. At the end of his tenure in 2008, he passed first in his class. Martens began his fashion career with Jean Paul Gaultier as
a junior designer, carrying the values harbored there to eventual roles as Artistic Director of Y/Project, Creative Director of Diesel
and then back to Gaultier for the brand’s 2022 Haute Couture collection.
“After one year and a half we reached where we wanted to be visually and now we started adding new product groups. It’s very much the ideology of Y/Project to take it very slow. The visuals might be strong and extravagant but how we build the team and grow internally, that’s different. I have a CEO with an economics background, he did Harvard, and I really trust his strategy. I see a lot of brands growing too fast and burning themselves, so we take it step-by-step.”
November of 2021, Diesel – Glenn Marten’s most recent directorial appointment – collaborated with neuno for the launch of their
digital ‘hero’ sneaker. As the label’s first NFT trainer is a limited-edition release, this unisex shoe marks a crucial repositioning of the
brand.