Glenn Martens Talks Taking on the Legacy of Jean Paul Gaultier
Glenn Martens, creative director for Y/Project and Diesel, is flexing his couture chops by creating a one-shot collection for Jean Paul Gaultier.
“I am happy, extremely happy, insanely happy ... [the collection] is me, my world. And at the same time it is something that goes beyond my own history and projects it into the future.” Jean Paul Gaultier, enfant terrible of French fashion, is excited, sitting in the large room of his Parisian atelier on Rue Saint-Martin. After taking his final bow on the runway following his Spring 2020 Couture show, the designer has retired from his decades-long marathon of collections and called on other designers to reimagine his couture, beginning with Sacai’s Chitose Abe. Gaultier most recently handed over the reins to Y/Project and Diesel creative director Glenn Martens, who designed the Spring/Summer 2022 Couture collection.
“I feel like I’ve had a facelift,” jokes Gaultier. “I loved this collection, the way he interpreted my universe. The modern approach to techniques and the savoir-faire of high fashion— the result is beyond anything I could imagine.” Martens— whose first job out of art school was at Gaultier’s atelier in 2008—presented 36 looks, keeping in mind Gaultier’s signatures: sailor stripes, corsets, and frothy evening gowns, all with the deconstructed twist Martens has become known for at Y/Project. “I wanted it to be a party,” says Martens. “To pay tribute to the creative heritage of the maison.”
“Couture has always been more than an abstract dream for me. It is a laboratory more than anything else. To invent contemporary forms and create clothes capable of dialogue with reality. To imagine creations ready to dress a clientele that really exists. To invent the future through incredible techniques and craftsmanship,” says Gaultier. “A dress, even when it makes you dream, must also be able to be worn. Fashion must be in constant contact with life and reality. My work as a designer has always been that of feeling and perceiving what happens in the real world.”
This grounding in reality ties together the two designers. Martens, 38, counts his day-to-day life in Paris as his biggest inspiration: ”What inspires me the most are my friends and people on the street—going out and seeing how kids are getting dressed,” says the designer. “I’m always very obsessively looking at people.”
"[Gaultier is] one of the first true inventors ... he brought street culture into luxury."
Here, L’OFFICIEL speaks with Martens about designing for Gaultier and his new adventure at Diesel.
L’OFFICIEL: Between Y/Project, Diesel, and designing Jean Paul Gaultier’s couture collection, how do you manage it all?
GLENN MARTENS: By not thinking about it too much, because if you think about it, you start freaking out. It was a very intense season—I don’t know how these other designers do it, to have so many brands and so many collections. The thing is though, I come from a very strict family. My grandparents on my mother’s side were all from three generations of people in the army. I also have this very structural Flemish way of working sometimes, so I can be very intense. This was how I had to do it this season. There wasn’t much time for a personal life, but that’s okay. I’m so blessed to work on three projects.
L’O: How did you first become interested in fashion?
GM: I grew up in a very small and provincial town: Bruges, Belgium. In the guidebooks, they call the city of Bruges the sleeping beauty, because it really is sleepy. My environment was definitely not very forward-thinking or experimental. However, the city itself was beautiful. Bruges is this historic little pearl, and it definitely influenced my obsession with history as a child. I would read about the kings and the queens and all the murders and the wars—it’s kind of like a fairy tale. I loved to draw as well, and a lot of my focus actually went into the garments these historical figures would be wearing. I think that’s when I first became aware that clothes can reflect a personality and embody a person.
L’O: Ladies and knights were your first models, but what was your first fashion memory?
GM: It was all of the women’s magazines my mom would buy. This was the heyday of the ‘90s couturiers like Gaultier and Thierry Mugler, who were doing these crazy theatrical couture collections. For a child, that was a feast for the eyes.
L’O: And your first job, right after graduating from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, was at Jean Paul Gaultier.
GM: Yeah, I was super blessed because it was a very independent house. As you know, fashion is very hard, especially when you’re entry-level. It’s long days of work; it’s very repetitive and can even be a bit abusive. But Jean Paul didn’t work that way. He was really about working together, celebrating fashion, and having fun.
L’O: Where do you get inspiration?
GM: My background in interior architecture very much colors the way I think about clothes; I’m always challenging construction, and thinking, How can we build garments in a different way? And then after that, it’s really my daily reality. I love living in Paris. I love the fact that it’s such a melting pot, and I’m always taking the Metro or walking around. I’m rarely in a taxi or an Uber, because I love being in the street.
L’O: What has been your approach to designing couture for Jean Paul Gaultier?
GM: The approach was definitely a celebration of craftsmanship and Gaultier himself. Designing one collection is a very different job from taking over a house, so I just tried to have as much fun as possible. I didn’t reinvent Gaultier’s woman, but I have my own way of seeing her.
"I'm always challenging construction, and thinking, how can we build this garment in a different way?"
L’O: What do you admire most about Gaultier?
GM: He’s one of the first true inventors. He was a mentor to so many people, and I think he opened doors for a whole generation of designers. What he really did was bring street culture into luxury; I think he was one of the first designers to work with street casting. When he would go clubbing, he would talk to the club kids and say, “You should be in my show.”
L’O: When we spoke to Gaultier during the show, he said his dream was to continue to be free. What is your dream?
GM: Freedom would be lovely, of course, but when you have responsibility for hundreds of families who rely on your brand’s success, you can’t blindly dream and be free. However, I think you can fulfill the market requests while still having fun and being joyful, and avoid becoming a commercial behemoth. That spot is where I’m the happiest.
L’O: How do you approach designing your collections for Y/Project and Diesel?
GM: They have different ways of working—at Y/Project, I’m talking to a very specific customer, because those garments are not your everyday pieces. Often one garment can be worn in many different ways, so when you put it on, you have to engage with it and question how you want to wear it and how you want to be perceived. I’m talking more to a customer who wants to experiment and celebrate their individuality. Diesel is different because it’s much more social. It’s clothes that people wear for daily life: we ride bikes in them; we work in them; we do the dishes in them. On top of that, it’s also a very accessible price point, so I’m talking to many more people.
L’O: What do you find rewarding about designing more for the masses?
GM: There’s a lot of responsibility that comes with it, because I’m accessing households that I normally couldn’t touch with Y/Project or Jean Paul Gaultier. And there, I think, is my responsibility to engage the customer with Diesel’s message of sustainability, which is fundamental to whatever we do.
L’O: What do you consider to be your greatest achievement?
GM: I think it’s the Diesel Library, which is a denim library we created with fully sustainable denim. This is really major, because this is a massive global brand, and I actually reworked the entire production process for Diesel’s core items. Forty percent of the turnover is based now on sustainable products. I’ve been an independent designer for so many years, and I’m extremely happy that I have the whole artistic expression with Y/Project, but at a certain point, there’s more to it than that. At a certain point I found myself thinking, Am I just going to be happy making pretty conceptual dresses my whole life, or do I want to do something more? And that’s where Diesel came in. Now I have the power to actually change things.
L’O: What do you see for your future?
GM: That’s a good question; a friend of mine asked me exactly the same thing two days ago. He was like, “What’s your next step?” And I was a bit like, “I have no idea.” I still have so much work to do. Diesel is a massive project— this kind of company is like the Titanic; you can’t just turn it around in one second. It takes time before things start changing. Y/Project has also been growing like crazy the last two years, and I just want to make sure it continues to grow so that my teams are happy, experimenting, and having fun.
