With a 13% year-on-year sales increase in 2023, Diesel under Glenn Martens – and the OTB Group more broadly – is proving a winner in these most divisive times for the sector. What’s special about Diesel is that, rather than aiming for space at the pinnacle of price and craft (where most other winners are), it expresses itself as a democratic alternative to conventional luxury, defined less by height and more by attitude.
This pre-spring collection continued the Martens formula. In between dropping some satisfyingly crude gossip – “but please save that for your book!” – he toured a collection that conveniently spanned the streets to the steps of The Met. As always, the core of the collection was built around denim. Here, black denim was tailored, dyed and coated to create an effectively ironic post-executive power wardrobe. A successful two-year-old line of denim effect underwear was reconfigured as outerwear with denim effect underwear. Martens said: “It basically blurs the archetypes and the typology of items and also blurs what the bottom or outer layer is.” More fading occurred on matte metal miniskirts that were split by zippers, allowing them to be repurposed as wearable luggage. Roughly cut, oversized pieces in denim boucle contrasted knowingly between raw and cooked. The Big D motif was re-expressed as a cut-out embroidery placed against the left chest on pieces that could give you a Diesel-branded sunburn.
A new version of the cute, creased handbag shown at last season’s mass video conference has been patented. There was a new line of broadly satirical sneakers whose retail prices, Martens said, are being deliberately reduced — another distinction between Diesel and the rest — to increase their viability. True to Martens’ core aesthetic, the collection was torn and bent in a refined manner to create an aura of absolute zero.
