At least one of the great open questions from the fashion industry has been answered.
On Wednesday morning, hours after the autumn fashion shows in Paris were closed in Paris, the Belgian designer Glenn Martens was appointed creative director of Maison Margiela, replacing John Galliano, the illustrious couturier who bowed out of the brand in December.
Mr. Martens is far from a fresh face with only the Brave Group, the company that has had the Margiela label since 2002. In 2020, Mr Martens was appointed creative director at Diesel, the specialist denim label that the OTB founder Renzo Rosso founded in 1978.
Mr. Martens stays in that position and becomes the rare designer who does double service as a creative director at two separate companies.
“I have been working with Glenn for years, I have witnessed his talent and I know what he is capable of,” said Mr. Rosso in a press release, who stated that Mr Martens will immediately start in Margiela, although it is unclear When he will organize his first catwalk show.
“I feel very honored to become a member of the great Maison Margiela, a really unique house that has been inspiring the world for decades,” said Mr Martens in the release.
The designer, 41, broke out on the scene in the Mid-Uughts as the designer of Y/Project, a Cultish French label. Mr. Martens to be an agile hand when setting up fixed notions of shape – and perhaps a good taste. He created pants that dived at the top and formed a y -shape that flashed the upper groin; Coats applied with too many sleeves; And gigantic denim boots that coincide as the wavy lines of a static television. Then Mr. Martens designed a splitting panties that looked like a light blue diaper, he showed that he was a maestro of smearing viral moments. Under the custody of Mr. Martens won Y/Project De Andam Fashion Prize in 2017 and 2020.
That attention helped Mr. Martens helped to diesel. Five years ago Diesel did not set the fashion world completely on fire. Many in the industry have taken it away as a rock ‘n’ roll jeans label behind time. Once at the brand, however, Mr Martens demonstrated that he is a Michaelangelo van denim, who causes a wave of new shoppers and glowing press.
He made turned jeans, jeans printed with trompe l’Oil fake outs and jeans that were almost transparent. He specialized in washes and trotted jeans in ink -black, dusty gray and desert brown. He split jeans until they were just as porous as cheese cloth and formed them in the rugged texture of a Komondor.
He achieved commercial victories with logo handbags, leather jackets and belt buckles, which channeled a Y2K style that was catnip to Millennial and Gen-Z Shoppers. Mr. Martens had a democratic touch near Diesel: one of his catwalk shows was performed for around 5,000 guests, including around 2,000 members of the public. Far from a fashion world Snob, Mr. knew. Martens also how he had to wink to his audience, as Diesel worked together with the Condoommaker Durex.
Mr. Martens left Y/Project last year and the label founded without him. It closes in January.
Mr. Martens could not have larger shoes to fill at Margiela. Mr. Galliano was a veteran of Dior and Givenchy, and despite a controversial past, he remains a consensus genius in the fashion world. He played Margiela, a brand that was set for a distilled minimalism among the founder Martin Margiela, in something definitely more fantastic. Mr. Galliano’s traditional couture shows were a callback to the more intimate yet theatrale ’80s and ’90 of fashion. On the runway he played with physical manipulation, draped textiles as if they were cotton cotton fluff and brought his specific brand baroque elegance back to the fashion phase.
It would be a safe gamble that Mr. Martens Margiela will send in a more grounded direction. In contrast to Mr. Galliano, who turned from the fashion press, is Mr. Martens a game interview. It is known that he dresses in an inquisitive modest uniform: jeans, dark sweaters, balcos. He is of course also a wizard of that most egalitarian substance, denim.
Mr. Martens shares a lot with Mr. Margiela. Two Belgians, they each graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and started working their career for Jean Paul Gaultier.
