“A member of Paris’s avant-garde, Martens is spearheading a streetwear revolution in the city with his commercial-yet-conceptual brand.”, – BoF.
38-year-old native from Bruges (Belgique) Glenn Martens has accumulated the creative directions of the brands where denim is in the core of the product: Y/Project from 2014, Diesel from 2021.
In 2022 he was invited by Jean Paul Gaultier to design the couture spring 2022 collection for this Parisian house. The highest point of the recognition but also an honourable but challenging responsibility brilliantly succeeded.
No wonder that Jean-Pierre Blanc, the founder of the International festival of fashion, photography and accessories in Hyères and the director of the Villa Noailles proposed to this graduate of the Royal Academy of Antwerp to head the fashion jury of the latest 37th edition of this contest. Proposal happily accepted, despite the tight agenda of the designer.
In fact Glenn has his person story linked to the Hyères festival: earlier in 2011 he assisted Léa Peckre, the finalist of Le Grand Prix Mode during the competition. Thus, it came quite naturally that 11 years later the former assistant presided the jury of the same event.
The atmosphere of the festival differs allot from the one reigns at Paris fashion weeks: in provincial Hyères situated in the Mediterranean coast of France the signature Parisian snobbism gives way to “easy going” attitude. Which seems to suit better to Martens who was raised by his grandma as his mother, divorced and worked few jobs to provide him and his older brother, didn’t have much time to spend with kids.Besides the denim passion, Glenn Martens has been always playing with the gender fluidity, which, even perceived as “trend” at the beginning evolved into new reality.Indeed, in his collections for Y/Project Martens mixed men and women looks long before it has become a common practice. Deliberate choice by the designer which he explained by the pragmatic (budget too limited to develop separately two gender lines) rather than artistic reasons.
The designer-influencer number one of the Gen Z has meanwhile a massive cultural and historical background. The home reagin obliges as he was born in the former Country of Burgundy (Bruges became the capital of the Country of Flanders, part of Burgundy, in 1089), place in the European map which used to be the fashion trendsetter in the Middle Ages.
Inspired by the romantic historical figures (the Princess Marie de Bourgogne for instance or the Pre-Raphaelites model Elizabeth Siddal) Glenn also admires such females designers as Madeleine Vionnet, Ann Demeulemeester and Véronique Branquinho for the “dark” side of their looks where grey and green-forest hues together with long silhouettes and minimalist cuts prevail.
The ultimate proof of success Glenn got last September when he dressed Nicole Kidman for her viral editorial in Perfect Magazine. Great fan since ever of this actress, “the real chameleon” as he says, Martens “chose” Nicole when Katie Grand (British top stylist, founder of Perfect Magazine) asked him to name anyone he wanted. Nicole accepted to shoot in Diesel and Y/Project looks. And the result, well, the result is just fabulous.
