After telling everyone in Milan to turn up to his Diesel show, resulting in a crowd of 7000 standing in the rain, Glenn Martens’ Paris runway for Y/Project should have been a more traditional affair. Naturally, it wasn’t. As the crowd carefully climbed some very precarious stairs to a large show space at the top of a half-finished building (side note: this Paris Fashion Week really has been a grand tour of the city’s finest building sites), it quickly became clear that there were far more people than there were assigned seats. But, if anything, this conveys the power of Glenn Martens, a designer that people will truly do anything to swindle their way into his shows. 

This SS24 collection had a large focus on denim, as we have come to expect with Y/Project. One of the best looks was a huge denim shawl with an oversized hood (the giant hoods were a recurring motif, like extremely trendy monks). The denim also found itself dyed and frayed, in pinks and yellows and greys. One pair of denim jeans was bunched and stiffened, creating a pair of trousers with the delicacy of tulle. This style also found itself formed into dresses and shirts in some of the collection’s other best looks.

Backstage, Martens was beaming. According to him, the collection was mainly inspired by the Gothic architecture of Bruges, his hometown. The exploding fabric was his take on “the pinnacles and the flying buttresses of Fleming Gothic architecture.” It does all make sense. The Gothic style was noted for its over-the-top stylings and ornate decadence, which also would describe Martens’ style rather well. 

On the nature of using so much denim in his collections, it also goes back to Bruges. “In Bruges we have the tallest Medieval tower that’s made of bricks. It’s nice that the material they were using is basic bricks, unlike in England or France who were using ornate stone. The material that we use is very basic and archetypal, cotton and denim, but from them we create these constructive twists.”