“We are continually evolving, it is about continuity,” said Glenn Martens regarding his process of reviving Diesel, and the democratic aspect of his resort 2024 offering. He added: “Perhaps more than anything I can say that what we did better this time was to take more carryover stories from the runway and industrialize them to create easier access price points for all of our stores and customers.” Another evolution, he said, was that his ambition to present Diesel collections as fluid, every-gender products on the shop floors has begun to manifest in certain flagship outlets – and that this lookbook was shot to reflect that. In other words, if February’s sultry, Durex-strewn Diesel show emphasized sex, then this follow-up collection was concerned with performance. The last-show iterations of Martens’ three Diesel pillars – denim, utility, and pop – were all harmniously diffused. Denim-wise, we saw the core material cut into jersey, leather, or bouclé panels on tough sportswear, trimmed with lace in easy-wearing little dresses, overlaid with oily or stonewashed color treatments, and used as a fabric for shoe uppers. The mainline collection’s intricate indigo dyed denim knits were reformulated in a fabrication designed to be color-fast as well as eye-catching. The designer emphasized that his foundational pivot to sustainability continues: “around 70% of all the denim here is produced through more sustainable processes,” he said. Elsewhere collegiate lettering on jerseys amusingly declared “Lies,” but this designer’s determination to green Diesel is no fib.

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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