Glenn Martens is headed to Maison Margiela as the home’s new artistic director

Glenn Martens is the brand new artistic director of Maison Margiela, it has been introduced this morning (28 January 2025). Having exited Y/Undertaking after 11 years on the helm this previous September, Martens – who for now will retain his position as artistic director of Diesel – replaces John Galliano, who left Maison Margiela after a ten-year tenure this previous December.

The home mentioned Martens will write ‘the following chapter of the home, constructing on its distinctive codes and model values’, following the important success of Galliano, who introduced a showman’s aptitude to the avant-garde label (his spellbinding remaining runway present, staged on the banks of the River Seine, was cinematic in its conjuring of collection of figures that seemed straight from a Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec portray).

Glenn Martens is Maison Margiela’s new artistic director

Martens was born in Bruges, Belgium, and studied on the prestigious Royal Academy of Positive Arts in Antwerp. He’s greatest recognized for his deconstructed and distressed denim, alongside intelligent performs on wardrobe archetypes, which could be warped or twisted of their proportions. At Diesel, he has introduced new power to the Italian denim-wear label, usually staging huge runway reveals which are open to the general public.

‘I’ve labored with Glenn for years, I’ve witnessed his expertise, and I do know what he’s able to,’ OTB chairman Renzo Rosso mentioned this morning (the OTB group is a style conglomerate that owns Maison Margiela, alongside Diesel and a slew of different manufacturers). ‘After Martin [Margiela], who gave life to the maison and its distinctive Artisanal line, and John, who made it probably the most cutting-edge couture home on the earth, I’m proud to have a 3rd couturier at its helm. Glenn, who studied at Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Positive Arts like Martin, has already proven his prowess and his imaginative and prescient in couture.’

Maison Margiela was based by the home’s namesake, the Belgium designer Martin Margiela, in 1988. A riposte to the high-wattage glamour of the last decade, Martin Margiela was an early proponent of deconstruction, the act of taking aside a garment and reconstructing it in new methods, in addition to working with discovered objects. Memorable items embody the split-toe ‘Tabi’ boot, which drew on conventional Japanese footwear; different clothes have been constructed from wigs, damaged plates, or recalled the type of a dressmaker’s model.