‘Britain feels like Disneyland’ Glenn Martens on a big Brit-inspired collab

If you brought together a Belgian designer and a Scandinavian high street giant, you might not expect the result to be a collection deeply rooted in British culture, but that’s exactly what Glenn Martens has done with upcoming capsule for H&M. “Britain is like living in Disneyland,” he laughs as we speak over Zoom a couple of weeks ahead of the launch. “Royalty, ghosts, tweed. What’s not to love?” he adds. 

The Maison Margiela and Diesel creative director has long felt an affinity with British style, and the fact that the UK is a truly fucked up little island only adds to its weirdo appeal.. From his earliest days working in fashion, he’s loved the way the Brits put together their clothes, with his own aesthetic, largely honed during his 12 year tenure at Y/Project, channelling the country’s haphazard, DIY approach to dressing. He’s so enamoured with the UK that he’s even picked up a British boyfriend somewhere along the way. 

You might think that Martens would have his hands so full leading Margiela and Diesel into a new era that he’d not have time to even consider an H&M collab, but the partnership came about well before Margiela had even entered the chat. Plus, the Swedish brand’s creative advisor, Ann-Sofie Johansson, was like a dog with a bone when it came to getting him on board “We love what Glenn does, and especially what he did at Y/Project,” she explains. “I really didn’t want to have to take no for an answer.” 

After officially signing himself up for the job, Martens was tasked with reimagining some of H&M’s bestselling archetypes, with basic cotton-jersey hoodies, denim jeans, classic tees, and trench coats among them. “I didn’t have to reinvent the wheel. They already had one – I just twisted it,” he says. The collection is made up of reimagined essentials, transformed to become anything but basic – think plaid shirts with wire seams that allow the wearer to manipulate the silhouette, slinky, second-skin dresses, the buttons of which can be worn straight-up or skew-whiff, and tonnes of trashed denim, sliced-and-diced knits, and blown-up outerwear. 

With Y/Project shuttering soon after Martens began work with H&M, the project became a celebratory send-off for the beloved cult label. Alongside, it marks something of a massive moment in the brand’s collaborative history. After partnerships with Margiela, Versace, Lanvin, Comme Des Garçons, Balmain, and more across the course of the last 21 years, Martens is the first designer to drop a collection under his own name, with Karl Lagerfeld the only other creative to have done so, back in 2004. “My ego is very much going to be exposed,” Martens laughs again. 

Martens might joke about having a big ego, but in fashion he’s known for everything but. The Belgian designer is notoriously chill, down to earth, and always happy to chat. What drew him to working with H&M was the ability to reach a lot more people than he previously has done in his career. “Not everyone can afford Margiela, or even Diesel,” he says. “I see fashion as empowerment, which should be available for all to enjoy. This collection is for the people, and hopefully it’s going to be everywhere in the wild – the club, the tube, in Tesco,” he adds. 

“Not everyone can afford Margiela, or even Diesel. I see fashion as empowerment, which should be available for all to enjoy. This collection is for the people, and hopefully it’s going to be everywhere in the wild – the club, the tube, in Tesco” – Glenn Martens

Beyond making fashion more democratic, it also meant Martens had even more creative space when it came to what he actually wanted to put out. “The production scale made the impossible possible,” Martens says. “Even at Margiela, with some of the margins, we can’t take stuff beyond the runway. With the H&M collab, we finally managed to put the thigh-high Y/Project boots into production, meaning fans are actually going to get to wear them after close to ten years or something.” The style in question is a cunty thigh-high stiletto that’s sure to sell out – the girls have been waiting for this one.

Bringing it all together is a campaign that plays off the campiest cornerstones of British culture. Leading the model line-up is Richard E Grant and Ab Fab icon Joanna Lumley, with the series depicting a dysfunctional British family – there’s the pissed-up uncle, the messy uni student, the hoity-toity grandma, and more, captured in the style of classic royal portraits. 

The traditional stuffiness of these artworks is shaken off, however, as regal chaise longues, velvet drapes in darkened stately home drawing rooms are switched out for scaffolding, with corgis and pigeons amping up the tongue-in-cheek flavour of the project. Like the collection itself, the series is intended to spark joy. “Sometimes fashion is just about making people happy in a good pair of jeans,” surmises Martens. “And I hope that’s what this collection does.”

Glenn Martens x H&M drops on October 30.