Milan, September 22nd, 2026 - Diesel energy is a rush, an intensity that never ends. Desire fuels everything, the impact like an iron fist. Immerse yourself in the party of your life, the club you never want to leave, all celebrating the final collection by Glenn Martens at Diesel.
“The party always comes first at Diesel. It’s about inclusivity, self-expression, pleasure and the democracy of experience. The collection is the essence of Diesel: disruptive, sexy, fluid, fun. We are all in this together: let’s take a ride one more time.” Glenn Martens, creative director of Diesel
Inside the venue is a purpose-built club space with a charged mood. As the show begins, so does a series of performative interventions by (LA)HORDE, the artist collective from Marseille. Embedded in the audience are 200 performers, engaging with the guests and each other, making actions that are sometimes liminal, sometimes unavoidable, from strange and unsettling to sensual and hot.
Their actions seem spontaneous, which is part of the game, a happening with rules where the unexpected is the driving force. Tension builds through the show, as does the discomfort and surprise caused by the performers. The happening, and the show, end in climax and release, with the soundtrack featuring a rework of “Love to Love You Baby” by Donna Summer.
In the collection, daywear is so desirable you want it all at once: a waxed leather jacket over a topstitched blazer, over a ribbed knit sweater that’s merged with a tracksuit collar and shirtsleeve cuffs. These merged pieces run throughout the collection, the join between garments defined by cutaways of orchids. Merging also leads to the pantasock in leather and denim. Question everything: over-the-knee skirts, demure from the front, are dramatically cut away for a party in the back.
Denim pieces are coated then lasered for a leather effect. Trompe l’oeil prints bring winter to spring, like prints of tweed coats and heavy winter jackets on lightweight button-ups. There’s even a trompe l’oeil print of a raw-edged shearling coat from Glenn’s first Diesel catwalk show. Meanwhile, what looks like micro denim shorts is also a trompe l’oeil, this time a roughly applied transfer prints on jersey.
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Cutaways begin to show skin, like the cutaway bottom of a polo-dress that’s trimmed with orchid embroidery, or the orchid petal shapes seem eaten into striped knit jacquard sweaters. Slim pants and tailored skirts are suddenly cutaway at the waist impossibly low, trimmed with orchid embroidery. T-shirts, sweatshirts, jersey dresses are so cutaway to barely even be there.
It’s all in play, like pieces foil-printed, cracked open, then printed with a trompe l’oeil of another garment: like denim bombers foil-printed as if a baseball jacket or a biker jacket. Then things get twisted, like a rucked-up T-shirt stitched together as bra tops, bandeau and sun dresses. A top held in place by a belt echoes the very first piece shown by Glenn at Diesel. Give in to chaos, like you’ve dressed too fast after an intense night, with twisted sheer floral dresses and bombshell slip dresses, as well as shirts and tailoring caught up in themselves, messed up and cut intentionally off.
It all comes back to denim. Throughout, there are bootcut jeans have the kick made by insets at the inner ankle, or straight-leg jeans coated then lasered to look like leather. There’s also topstitched denim, jeans with slits at the ankle for stiletto heels, and jeans have a denim shirt attached as if tied at the waist. In the end are the most micro denim shorts imaginable, like a manifesto of the party. The final look is worn by Ella Snyder, who wore the first look of Glenn’s debut Diesel collection: a true full-circle moment.
The D-ONE bag comes in so many treatments, textures and shades, each with handles which turn into the multiple-buckled straps down the body. New this season are ironic charms, with leather versions of everyday objects: a sock becomes a pouch, a newspaper becomes a clutch. Meanwhile the slouchy new LOCK-D bag, which uses the Double D motif, which first appeared in Diesel jewellery, as its lock. Footwear features the buckle from the D-ONE, like pumps, heeled mules, stretch boots and clogs. The Double D motif becomes the signature detail of loafers, slingback sandals, closed-toe mules and kitten heel clogs. For men, there’s also Western-inspired footwear, with denim clogs and heeled boots. There’s a new mini version of the metal bracelet D-RUSH watch, and new tonal shades of the transparent acetate eyewear family TRAN-D-SPARNT. Lingerie is introduced for the first time with boning, embroidered with orchids. And orchids are everywhere in jewellery, with orchid earrings, bracelets, plus chains and clips to adorn the body. It’s all about desire, with the orchid the signature flower of Diesel’s newest fragrance Only Desire.
