“For this pre-collection it’s very much a combination of all the Diesel codes, including the utility workwear vibe, a little bit more tailoring, plus a little bit more millennial clothes.” Glenn Martens spoke at his usual pell-mell pace on a call about a collection that majored on the apparently impossible, featuring trompe l’oeil fabrications, radical garment combinations, and new accessory iterations.
Code-wise, denim remains Diesel’s foundation. It arrived distorted into newly unlikely articulations including so-called “impossible” microskirts (with tennis-style inbuilt shorts), jackets in denim treated to mimic leather, grafted-garment semi-denim mixes including miniskirt/baggy shirt rompers, and drapey tailoring in denim-acting viscose. These freewheeling fashion experiments were balanced by gently subversive takes on older normcore staples such as kitten heel loafers with silver uppers or an oversized librarian sweater vest in distorted indigo cable knit.
There was an extended rally between sportswear and workwear whose key shots included a jersey dress with athletic side-stripes, tennis shirt wrap dresses, and some strong utility jackets, pants and chore coats in coated canvas or washed denim. Tracksuits layered over shirting and cropped pants hit like a post millennial take on Le Smoking, while their transparency reflected the wider philosophy of full disclosure Martens is championing. About this lookbook, for instance, he offered: “The backdrop was the real backdrop of the backstage, which is cute. It reflects the policy of Diesel: being about lifestyle while showing what’s really happening.” In that spirit of transparency, he digressed into discussing a new Diesel collaboration with Tinder to celebrate Pride: “It shows we are for successful loving as well as successful living,” he deadpanned.
