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Glenn Martens is busy. Between Y/Project and Diesel, and between Paris and Milan, the designer has little time for anything other than work. Yet somehow in between the madness of dressing Kylie Minogue and Dove Cameron for the Met Gala and celebrating a decade at Y/Project, he’s managed to curate the latest issue of A Magazine, which is observing a milestone of its own. The Belgian magazine is turning 20 this year, and the issue that Martens, who is a Belgian himself has overseen, is the beginning of a year of celebrations for the cult publication.
When A Magazine editor Blake Abbie approached Martens, the designer said, he made it quite clear that this was a magazine about him and not about the brands he leads—a daunting challenge for a creative so intrinsically intertwined with his own work. Martens is Y/Project, and has made Diesel very much his own. The challenge developed into a self-reflecting exercise that saw the designer retrace his steps all the way back to his hometown of Bruges, where he says his love affair with fashion and history began. The issue is a curious inside look at the fantastical mind of Martens, one of today’s most celebrated designers. From gothic architecture and gay porn stars to AI icons and pre-Raphaelite muses, A Magazine Curated by Glenn Martens sees the designer examine all of his fascinations in order to better understand how they’ve gotten him to where he is now. Read through as Martens talks muses, history, and what he wants to do next.
Glenn, when you started this project, did you have a clear idea of what a magazine curated by you would look like?
Glenn Martens: I mood board, so I did some stories and then we debated on which ones to keep. I was quite blessed in the way that I know A Magazine quite well, as I think I was in the Antwerp Academy when they launched the first one [A Magazine Curated By Maison Martin Margiela in 2004]. A Magazine has been one of my favorites since my early days. I knew the recipe, but when Blake contacted me it was a bit of a dream to do it knowing all the amazing artists and designers who came before me.
Blake was quite clear that this is not a magazine about brands, but about the designer. Of course, then you go back to the beginning, and make the whole study about why I fell in love with fashion, and where and how. When I started my Glenn Martens brand, I built a massive bible of visuals. A friend of mine said to me that the most important thing you should do is build up a database of things that are your visual and creative pillars. There’s going to be so many moments in life where things pass by. You have no idea of what’s happening between Diesel and Y/Project and millions of collections and millions of things. Sometimes you might forget your North Star a bit, so this bible is good to have. I went back to that.
What are those pillars for you?
When I look at that archive that I did 20 years ago, a lot of what I do right now still is linked to those fundamental aesthetics. Most of those visuals are quite old, but I wanted to reflect on them in 2024 and see what they mean now after all the stages in my life. I think the starting point is always the same thing for most creative people. They often reflect back to the times where they built themselves as young adults and created an independent way of seeing the world that is unlinked from your parents or people around you. Mine was very much linked to Bruges, my hometown. It’s a medieval pearl called the Venice of the North. It was one of the richest cities in the western world in the 14th century. A lot of exquisite, austere early gothic architecture, that is a little sad. It fell asleep in the 15th century because of economic problems and it stayed intact, sleeping for 600 years. Then it became a hotspot for mass tourism in the 1870s. So you have this very gray, rainy climate and the contrast of a really aggressive city with buses and horses and fast food stands and all the tourists. That contrast has colored everything I do.
I’m very much a person linked to elegance and beauty and craftsmanship in a more traditional way, in a fashion pattern-making, tailoring, and craft way. But then I do like to put in a spotlight something connected to the street and to the aggressive explosion of daily life. It’s been 10 years of Y/Project with me, so then we shot a key look from each collection in those 10 years in the street in Bruges with top Belgian models from the 2000s. Back then you had the Belgians and the Brazilians, which was also an interesting contrast.
You’ve become known, particularly with Diesel, for your sense of humor. Where do you find the balance between this historic, more gothic side of your aesthetic and that joyfulness and freewheeling spirit?
It goes back to Bruges. It’s the clash between the gothic exterior of the cathedrals and the churches with the aggressivity of the streets—you have french fries stands everywhere [laughs]. Growing in Bruges, one of your favorite things to do as a kid in primary school is to compete with your bike going as fast as possible in the streets and zigzagging between tourists. You find fun ways to live, and Diesel is inside of that. The whole Belgian way of thinking is like this, too. Belgians are known for having a sarcastic sense of humor. If you grow up in a country where it’s raining every single day and it’s never summer, you have to find fun somewhere else [laughs]. There is also this whole surrealistic vibe to Belgium, which also reflects on my work.
On the topic of churches, I enjoyed the story in the magazine about religious architecture. I grew up surrounded by churches and cathedrals. Are you religious or faithful at all, or what about it do you find interesting?
Nothing [laughs]. I’m not religious at all. I have zero religion [in me], but I do respect the symbolism of it a lot. I respect the idea of gathering, and I’m trying to focus only on the good of religion. When you think about what’s positive about religion, it’s helped generations of people go through difficult times. The buildings more than the books I like, and this whole Disneyland factor. It’s like a fairytale, and I love fairytales. Maybe on doomsday I will have another opinion, but in my world today I’m very agnostic. I love everything that is not always connected to our everyday life, because that is also the idea of fashion, it helps us dream away from the rawness of reality. Fashion is there to make people dream. Churches and mosques do the same thing. I always think about these massive cathedrals built 800 years ago when villages were only made out of mud and wood. If you think about how 98% of the people were living in the 1400s and then you see a building made of stone today that is 100 meters high, this absurdity is quite human. It’s quite good to celebrate absurdity sometimes. It’s fascinating, and of course, the art history and the art.
I was raised Catholic, so I was always fascinated by iconography. There is some of that too in the magazine, which I found really interesting. This idea of the icon and the muse with Elizabeth Siddal, The Sharok, and the Diesel shoot. Why did you choose to explore this?
Blake kept asking me who my muses are. I was obsessed with Elizabeth Siddal growing up, back to the beginning again. She was legendary. One of the first top models in the history of mankind. She is known to be one of the first independent women who did not come from aristocracy. She built herself on the streets and became a successful model, writer, and painter, but obviously died quite young in a very dramatic way as it happens in those kinds of crazy tales. We are also talking about empowering yourself. The Sharok, I was wondering what it is to be this idolized, hot gay man, and how does it feel to live that kind of reality and what’s the pressure. Because he is much more than his porn, he has political statements and speaks about a variety of issues. He’s more than a hot body, but it’s interesting to see how the person behind all of this very sexualized connotation is living his life.
And that Diesel shoot. What we did is that every single model is actually a combination of different famous celebrities, so they’re all AI. You have mixes of these Hollywood stars, but you don’t know who they are but they are familiar still, which links again with pop culture and I think was quite a nice reference to this ideology of people but in a whole new way.
Putting Elizabeth Siddal and a gay contemporary porn star like The Sharok in a single magazine with such a clear connection is really interesting, and shows us a bit of how your mind works.
Well they both do the same thing, I thought. I think people became obsessed with Elizabeth Siddal. The whole school [the Pre–Raphaelites] was obsessed and they were all fighting to get her to model. And there’s so many people obsessed with Sharok. They both exist as this [entity] besides their own person, but of course have their own personality and identity outside of the persona they created. I find it to be quite a straight link. They just have different mediums.
I’m also curious about your own relationship as both artist and idol, or artist and muse. Your work has become very influential and is highly referenced. I see it on other runways and in student collections. Is this something you think about?
I don’t think about it at all, to be honest. I personally have no idols myself. I respect a lot of people for their art and their work, but I’m quite low in my fangirling. I really try not to think about it. I always see the portfolios of people who want to get jobs and be a part of our team, and it’s amazing because they’re the most creative and bursting of ideas, but [they’re] also wanting to do something which sometimes has no reality factor. That is the problem. We have to always try to give it a little bit of real life. Diesel is the same thing. I think the whole energy and the whole joy of my career, at least in my two companies, is that the teams are human and nice and there is no high fashion bitchiness. We are there to work. So I’m not aware of any of it because, at the end of the day, I’m based in Paris, and people in Paris don’t give a shit about who you are. In Italy I’m mostly with the teams, and then I’m with my friends trying to hike in Scotland or go parachute jumping or being outside the industry. New York is quite intense, and every time I go to New York I often understand the weight of my name because I do get talked to in the middle of the street or recognized to take pictures. But not in Brooklyn, just downtown. I think it’s part of the deal. It’s kind of fun.
Your work has a lot of historic references while also leaning into this hyper-digital aspect of today’s fashion and culture. What’s the tension you explore between the past and the present? How important is that to you?
What can I say about this whole historic thing? Even Diesel, and most people don’t see it, has quite referential historic elements. Some looks are queens or whatever from 16th or 17th century portraits. For me the most important thing is to never do a classic one-to-one reference. I’ve studied these things because they’ve been my obsessions my whole life, history and garments, and historic garments. My first connection to fashion was me at six or seven years old drawing historic figures. I was obsessed. Saints and virgins and kings or queens, anything dramatic and they all had to die in some dramatic way like a snake biting their boob or being beheaded [laughs]. It’s not interesting to give direct references. You can see Elizabeth I of England on a Diesel runway, but it’s about the power and the opulence and decadence. It has to do with the fact that I’m luckily and happily in Paris, and I go out and party and go to raves and then I’m also a very serious creative director and work a lot even in my free moments. But then when I go out, my friends and I like to have fun wherever, we can be at a random bar in Paris or somewhere else making friends all night.
That element of realness has always attracted me to your work. When Blake told you that this is a magazine not about brands but about you, what did you think?
I don’t do the job for the hype, I sometimes think that creating collections and shows is almost therapy. But I understood that it’s not supposed to be a fashion magazine only, so in that way it was quite easy, and I have so many other things that I can talk about.
It’s interesting what you say about not doing it for the hype. That’s evident, but your work is still very much hyped. It’s not necessarily trend oriented, but it still sets trends. Do you ever consider that impact when creating?
First of all, Diesel is a different baby. It’s a lifestyle brand. There is a product, and I enjoy it because we are there to make people happy to wear it everyday, by going to the office and taking their bikes or taking care of the kids. You’re not going to the market in a [Y/Project] shirt with a wire in it, so it’s a different thing. There’s the runway where we are working on that dream. But I think that the hype, the success of Diesel is that it’s not snobby. The democratic price point of some garments, because some can be quite expensive, is important. I’m not going to sell a classic logo t-shirt for 800 euros, that price point is 70 or 80, and it’s designed with integrity still. I really look at every single product as much as possible to make sure they all have a reason to be. That they’re still fashion items. It’s also a brand about having fun. Don’t give a shit, respect each other, enjoy life. So many brands can be about being an intellectual, coldhearted bitch or whatever, and that’s not what we do. Yet we still take the customer quite seriously. If it’s expensive it’s because there’s a big development and a lot of craftsmanship. Diesel grew 13% last year while it’s a time where everything is collapsing and falling into pieces. Y/Project grew, too, even though we have a cash flow issue because we are independent and have no backer, but we are still growing and growing really well. There is a global mindset that is changing quite a bit. People want integrity, they want to be taken seriously.
It’s true. We know too much now as customers, and we want to know brands are not thinking we are gullible. This is a good segue into advertising. I liked Silvia Prada’s essay about the legacy of Diesel campaigns. I remember those ads and the United Color of Benetton ones from when I was growing up. They were fearless and transgressive and important. Can you tell me about expanding this tradition?
One of the reasons why I fell in love with Diesel in the beginning was for the campaigns. We are a bit from the same generation, but we lived somewhere different. In the 2000s there was a uniqueness to Diesel, not a classic fashion or luxury brand, it was about the lifestyle, and that was the priority in the campaigns and they were probably the first to do that. That’s what Silvia was writing about. They were emblematic. You had a gay couple kissing in the middle of a campaign. I was gay-bashed my whole teenage years, even when I wasn’t officially gay. I think they accelerated some kind of global ethos and way of thinking, made people more understanding and accepting, always with a sense of humor and cheekiness and sexiness. That is definitely what I’m trying to do all the time now. I really wanted to have that Diesel campaign in the magazine that is a wink to Where Is Waldo? because you don’t see any product. You see gay people kissing, people vomiting. There’s millions of stupid little things happening in there, which is part of our reality and who we are. With Diesel, you talk to everybody. The fashion people and everyone else. My brother is a straight fireman. He doesn’t give a shit about fashion, but he likes Diesel. He follows Diesel. I think that is where you have to know that your imagery and your messages can go quite deep and go quite far.
Do you ever think about what you want to do next?
[Laughs] I have my communication manager here and my colleague from Y/Project in the back of the office working, well, fake working as he just turned around with his eyes wide open to hear about what I’ll say my next steps are. Again, I’m extremely blessed. I think that, with both brands, I finally managed to settle them down a little bit and have really great teams that are all speaking the same language, which is difficult to do. My biggest dream now is to just build on and go bigger, and maybe also imagine maybe to manage to be at home a few weekends a month. Go to a concert, live a really lovely private life. I’m not complaining at all, this is my passion, but there are moments where I want to spend time with my boyfriend, cook again, reconnect with my private self, which I put on a cupboard in 2020 when I took on the second baby [Diesel]. I think I am lucky to have these two amazing platforms that speak very different languages. My snobby, artistic self I can explore with Y/Project with the joy of making things for the sake of doing them and enjoying the craft. With Diesel I can have parties and raves and exhibitions with Tom of Finland or even get to go to the Met Ball and dress Kylie Minogue. All of these fun moments. I’m quite happy.
