Glenn Martens has just officially become the busiest designer in fashion. (And let’s face it, these days that’s saying something.) Martens, the original and inventive talent behind Y/Project, who’s also the creative director of Diesel, is now adding a third gig to his packed schedule: Jean Paul Gaultier Couture. (Chitose Abe of Sacai presented the first designer-in-residence collection for Gaultier this past July.) Luckily for Martens’s packed calendar this will be a one-off engagement. He will show his vision of Gaultier’s haute couture, which has always been an incredible and energetic fusion of pop culture and time honored artisanal craft, not to mention the visionary brilliance of JPG himself, in January 2022.
Understandably, Martens is psyched to be getting this honor, given how much he respects the founder of the house. “Jean Paul made everything seem possible,” Martens said on a phone call Thursday. “He brought freedom of speech, freedom of sex, to fashion. And he worked with values—values which are important and relevant to today. I do feel a strong connection to Jean Paul,” he went on to say. “We share a similar approach to fashion; not being so serious about it all, elevating things which don’t normally get elevated at French luxury and couture houses.” Here’s another couple of things they share: Both have slyly subverted the notions of tailoring—and each knows their way around witty, subversive renderings of denim.
It’s a bit of a full circle moment for Martens. After graduating from Antwerp’s Royal Academy, he went directly to work for Gaultier menswear, after an external juror at his degree show, a good friend of Gaultier’s, suggested he hire him. The experience left a profound impression on him. “I had friends who went elsewhere to work, and they were under a lot of pressure,” he said, “but with Jean Paul, it was about enjoying life, having fun. I try to make Y/Project the same: take the job seriously, but don’t ever poison the atmosphere.”
The two designers met for lunch the other week, and caught up. During their meeting, Gaultier told Martens he’d often felt like an outsider in fashion, precisely because he tried to live a life that wasn’t just about fashion—and then bring it into his work. “Jean Paul was interested in going to the clubs, to the underground,” said Martens. “He had a life beyond fashion, and because of that, he gave us things like street casting, which shifted the idea of the beauty of high luxury, giving us a different way of thinking about fashion. It was groundbreaking.”
As to the ground he will be breaking with his haute couture for the house, Martens doesn’t want to give away too much—but the notion of celebration will feature prominently. Ask him about his favorite collections, and two RTW offerings spring to mind—the tattoos and piercings of spring 1994 and the homage to the clothing of Orthodox Jewish people from fall 1993—as well as the ostrich feather fantasias which the designer was a whizz at for his couture.
“We’ve done gowns for Y/Project, but never sold one of them, they were show pieces,” Martens said, laughing. “But working on couture...it’s a chance to work with les petites mains, and spend time and really go deeply into the making of a dress. Couture is an absurd fairy tale,” he continued, “but it is like art: we cling onto it, and it makes us dream. And couture can do the same thing.”