On Tuesday, Y/Project’s Fall/Winter 2023 collection marched through the Institut Français de la Mode to the notes of George Frideric Handel’s aria “Lascia ch’io pianga,†from the opera Rinaldo. Traveling from his Diesel show in Milan, creative director Glenn Martens switched gears to present a provocative range that was fueled by his penchant for experimentation.
The collection was innovative in its construction. Oversized jeans were sculpture-like, with twisted seams and buttoned panels that consumed their wearer’s legs, while tops were stitched together asymmetrically and puffed-up jackets were made with intricate layers of denim. Here, Martens once again proved his mastery of the material.
His successful transformation of the once-dusty Diesel brand is all thanks to his subversive approach to denim’s traditional forms — and if this latest Y/Project collection tells us anything, it’s that his fashionable manipulation of the fabric is simply incomparable. For him, denim is superior. “Denim is the most democratic fabric in the world,†he previously told Hypebeast. “Everyone everywhere wears denim.â€
Taking it one step further, Martens sliced up the textile and plastered it across the range as embroidery on formal blazers, wool coats, turtlenecks, slip dresses and bodycons, among several other silhouettes. It was quintessentially Glenn Martens, at its finest.
Meanwhile, prints, reminiscent of those the designer crafted in collaboration with Jean Paul Gaultier last year, took the brand’s sex factor to new heights, with very explicit illustrations commanding figure-forming silhouettes. In hindsight, Handel’s “Lascia ch’io pianga,†which famously soundtracked the opening scene of Lars von Trier’s Antichrist, should have clued showgoers into the brand’s shock-factor designs.
Peruse Y/Project’s Fall/Winter 2023 collection in the gallery above.
Elsewhere at Paris Fashion Week, Louis Vuitton’s Fall/Winter 2023 collection lauds French fashion forms.
