GLENN MARTENS IS LEAVING DIESEL AFTER SIX YEARS

Glenn Martens is exiting Diesel after six years as creative director, with his Spring/Summer 2027 collection shown 22 September during Milan Fashion Week marking his final outing for the Italian denim house.

Diesel has not named a successor, saying only that one will be "announced in due course."

Martens joined Diesel in 2020 while still leading Y/Project, and used his tenure to reposition a brand that had spent years without a clear creative direction, following Diesel being without a lead designer since 2017. His approach treated denim as raw material for genuine experimentation - oversized proportions, deconstructed washes, large-scale runway spectacle - while keeping intact what Diesel founder Renzo Rosso described as the brand's openness, energy and accessibility. Rosso publicly credited Martens with transforming perceptions of the label and strengthening its connection to a new generation of shoppers.

The departure comes as Martens continues in a second, arguably higher-profile role: creative director of Maison Margiela, a position he took on in 2025 following John Galliano's exit from the house. Running two major creative directorships simultaneously had already stretched Martens across two of the most demanding calendars in fashion; stepping back from Diesel leaves him free to concentrate entirely on Margiela's considerably more conceptually rigorous design language.

The timing places Martens' exit within a broader wave of creative-director turnover this year - Dario Vitale's move to Emporio Armani and Ib Kamara's departure from Off-White both landed within the same news cycle, prompting industry commentary about how unusually active the design leadership "mercato" has become across contemporary and streetwear-adjacent labels specifically.

For Diesel, finding a successor capable of maintaining the cultural momentum Martens built - without simply repeating his specific aesthetic - will be the real test of how durable his six-year reinvention of the brand actually proves to be.