Glenn Martens

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1:16Hi, come in.

1:24Welcome to Fashion Neurosis, Glenn Martins. Thank you for having me. Can you tell me what you're wearing today and why you chose these particular clothes? I mean, obviously, the question I knew you would ask. But it started mainly with the idea that I stopped smoking a month and a half ago. And I think the reality is there, really. I mean, you compensate. So you eat, you eat, you eat. And so I needed something to snuggle into. even if it's like 40 degrees in London and super hot. So that was the starting point. I wouldn't go for the knitwear. And then the other thing is that I kind of mostly wear always, I mean, my friends would see me wearing this shirt like weekly.

2:13I would see me wearing the same pants weekly. I think I'm very much a uniform kind of guy. I like to wear clothes, constantly the same clothes when I like something. when I fall in love with a t-shirt or shirt I just wear them every day of the week until they kind of dissolve on my body so that's kind of the one I'm wearing now Is everything designed by you? No, the jacket is magela and also the pants are magela from before me so from John the great thing is that those denims have a really nice rigid denim So it's, I mean, obviously at Diesel we have great denims also, but there's mostly a bit of comfort stretch.

2:57And I like them a bit more stiff. I think they live longer, they live better. And the shirt I bought in a secondhand store, like in 2008, when I recently just had moved to Paris with one of my Belgian buddies. I think we went to some secondhand stores. This is basically where I used to always shop. and it was amazing and it still is amazing because it's like sun faded but naturally which is impossible to make. I've been trying to do this kind of sun fade techniques in every single company I've worked at and you only get the real soul when it's really been worn under the burning sun I think and that's why I fell in love with it and it was 20 euros I think in those days which was a fortune.

3:42So that's obviously why I cherish it. And it's still in an okay, good state today. Yeah, I love wearing the same things. And someone mentioned the other day that everything looks good with holes in too, which I always love my old sweaters with holes. But I hadn't thought about it so specifically, and it was a good observation. It's so much better when there's a soul. I mean, like it's really, I mean, I think that's why I always went secondhand shopping. Of course, because it was cheaper in the beginning when I was a student, but I really love the idea that it has had a life. Yeah. I think that's also why denim is so sexy, actually.

4:29Yeah. I think a good denim, and especially a rigid denim, just gets better and better the more you wear it, the more memories it carries, the more holes it has, the more it's distressed. And yeah, I think that's why I love denim. Yeah, and I wore this denim shirt especially for you. It's new and it's rigid. And you're a hugely respected fashion designer who's famous in the industry, and you're the creative director of both Maison Margiela and Diesel, designing some of the most exciting fashion. and do you adjust your identity in any way when you're switching from one house to the other? Good question.

5:19I do adjust, I used to, let's say like that. I think I used to have a diesel uniform. When I arrived in the company, I really had like, there was a bit of a friction also at diesel because it was a company which had had quite a long series of different CEOs. So there was a lot of people in the company who would arrive there according to a different strategy. So when I started five years ago, I of course did one-to-ones with all my head self and all my head designers and I asked them what is diesel for them. And every single one of them had a very different opinion about the brand because they were hired at a different moment.

6:01under a different direction. And I was like, okay, this is going to be the biggest challenge. The number one is we have to make all those people speak the same language again. And I thought having a uniform was very helpful because I became just a neutral person. So I bought this kind of black cargo pants and black cargo shirt and I was just wearing this. I had like triples of them, actually. Utility wear, which felt very close to diesel. And then I wore this for the first six months until my first collection came out and I was just black denim shirt, black denim pants. And it very much helped, yeah, just like making people not focus too much on how I look like and just focus on, I was really neutral, let's say, I helped being neutral.

6:47And then at Margiela, obviously, I mean, the greatest gift that Martin could ever have given us is the blouse blanche. Yeah. It's like this white lab coat that we all wear in the office. So I also kind of disappear, which is quite great. So I think, I mean, look-wise, I definitely am quite similar, I would say, now. And personality-wise, I think the same too. I mean, they both belong to OTB, and I think they both do have a similar approach somewhere, somehow, in the way that they're very independent. it's a very individual brand and there's not that many neither in the luxury world I think Maison Margiel is so different than the other ones there's no need to I mean they have that link they have that link and also the lifestyle brand is talking to so many different customers in so many different ways that there's no real competition so we're all very free spirit people in there so I kind of got lost maybe I love keep on going keep on going I love the idea that a different outfit will just shift you slightly into a different kind of receptiveness to the needs of that that brand and something that subtle yeah but I mean I think we clothing does really have a very big influence on how you've been perceived in this whole that's kind of the whole key of it no and yeah uh and and i mean i've played a game quite i mean i have to play the game also quite intensively so and you said your mother didn't easily hand out compliments but she would always praise your emotional intelligence and that was one of the only compliments that she'd give you and how do you deal with compliments and are you able to give them or receive them?

8:51I think I'm very pragmatic. I'm not the biggest I mean I'm a very group worker let's say. I think I'm really I'm always asking people's opinions and I think even though I'm very directional I include people so it's not going to be this dominant kind of creator director dictating what's going to happen. But it's true that I will say thank you a lot but I'm not the biggest compliment giver it's true that maybe it's part of my education that we were not complimented and I think that's probably also the reason why I made it so far in my life because I think I never got so much confirmation from home I think it was never something that people would say like my dad still today is of course very very proud of me but I mean I'm not sure he really I mean I wonder when the last time was it.

9:48I mean, it's very proud, but it's not verbally very well dictated or he's not going to give it. So I guess I do the same thing. I should maybe do it more often. But I think people do know that I love working together. I mean, both at Diesel and at Magella, it's a family feeling. And I think they really know that I respect them and I'm really invested 100 % in the work that we do together. So I think I get rewards in a different way. Yeah. It's such an interesting thing. Someone once asked me what was the best compliment I'd received and I thought, gosh, that's such a good question. And I remembered it too when I was 20 or something.

10:36Somebody said, I was wearing this suit that I, one of the first things I'd ever made. Maybe I was not. And he said, oh, you look like a Manet. And I thought, wow, that's amazing. But my mother never paid me any compliments. But I love paying compliments. You do? Yeah. And now I think you have to, I don't know how correct it is, to comment on how wonderful someone looks. So I have to keep it in. It's complicated. I would say that they look cute when they look cute. Yeah, but that's strange. It's complimenting. It's true today in 2026. It can turn around so fast. because you described your mother as a very complicated woman and she took her own life in 2023 and did you ever imagine that she might do something like no never really i mean she was very um proud and very angry so it didn't really fit into the the system i mean she she really she was a mother which a woman who i mean she was definitely a mother she was she really loved us intensively and a lioness type of mother but at a certain point she gave love I mean any kind of way how to get attention would feel would give her confirmation of being important so it wasn't by giving compliments or by giving love it was actually by I don't know why but her I mean there was definitely some kind of something there a problem but But aggression and fights and lies would actually, I think, make her feel very present.

12:38Of course, there's a reality to it that is undeniable and there's so many. We're all confronted to it and many people decide to end their life because for multiple reasons. I mean, for many multiple reasons. The thing is, there's always the leftovers and the people who are the family and the children and the friends.

12:58which we all know are, of course, the ones dealing with the trauma. And you just so often don't see it that actually the person you're working, the person who's in front of you is actually maybe going to one of the darkest moments of their life and are like in agony of pain. Yeah. And have to keep on going. And I think that's something that, I mean, I lived intensively. Obviously, my mother killed herself on 7th of September, 2023. And that was literally seven days before, or maybe 10 days something, before I had my Diesel show. And the Diesel show was an open rave to 7 ,000 people, open to public in Milan, where there was like, I don't know, 17 hours of rave.

13:43And I was there pretending having the best time and motivating the whole teams, the whole gang of being like, this is great. and obviously nobody besides my CMO maybe and the CEO knew that I was going to the death of my mother. And literally then I had, after that rave where I just faked the joy and happiness of life, I flew back to Belgium again to bury her and she was very illegally shattered her ashes under a tree. And those ashes were like scruffled. My brother and me had to like kind of dig them in a bit as it was quite illegal. in the dirt and I went with her ashes back to Paris to have the Y Project show, the brand I used to work for, three days later.

14:28And then the song of the Y Project show, the last Y Project show, was actually a funeral song. It was like linked to her. And all of this happened, of course, as a creative director, of course. I mean, the depth and the sadness that you're dealing with, you don't want to reflect that to that team of hundreds of people which are all there working since months and months on that one project and want to celebrate the group efforts. And of course, all of this I completely kept aside. And it just makes me a bit more, hopefully, more aware of tragedies. And I'm trying to be maybe not complimenting people, but being soft and sweet and being understanding to people.

15:16and I think I definitely became a more soft person, even though I guess a lot of people would say I'm quite harsh. But yeah, life is hard. Yeah. No, I mean, it completely changes one, and especially of a parent somehow. It's the ultimate abandonment. and

15:44yeah it's I mean it is and your mother is the I don't know for me at least my mother even though there was a lot of friction and a lot of sadness in our life together she was the ultimate symbol of love you know yeah and you can never find that back in somebody else I mean I was very very close to my grandmother the mother of my mother she passed away on Christmas at a very beautiful age of 97. Gosh. But the mother is different, I guess. It's very, very different. There's only one. Because she worked very hard as a nurse and she also sometimes did cleaning work at the weekend. What did she look like?

16:29What was your overriding memory of her presence? She was very, very beautiful when she was young. Very twiggy, vibey, 60s, gorgeous. very skinny, dark, dark brown hair, big, big eyes. Then obviously after the divorce of my dad when I was three, I mean, yeah, I was in the 80s, so she worked hard. And I do remember that she didn't have a time between being a nurse and a cleaning lady. She didn't really have a time to take really care of herself. And she also didn't, I mean, I understand. I mean, you have to get to feed and you have to work. And so, like, being dressed was not really her priority until those few moments a year when she was out with a boyfriend or friends.

17:18And then she just turned into Cinderella. And then the makeup came up. And then the hair was brushed. And that happened so rarely. But I remember when she was dressing up, I was, as a child, like, just magnetized watching through the door and looking at those eyes becoming just like paintings. And she was very, very pretty, I have to say. So, yeah. Gosh. At T-Mobile, the new iPhone 18 Pro is here with a big leap in battery life, and you can get it on us. With so many reasons to choose T-Mobile, you'll want to talk about it. At T-Mobile, you can get iPhone 18 Pro on them. Pass it on. My friend said you can get it on T-Mobile.

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18:33iPhone 18 Pro 256GB to acquire. Best and fastest mobile network in the U.S. Based on analysis by Ooclip's Speed Test Intelligence data 1-8-2026. Visit T-Mobile.com. So like any good millennial, I have a love-hate relationship with Gen Z. It's the phenomenon rattling millennials. They just look at you. They want something bigger themselves. Lifestyle is a priority. Motivation is being inspired. But regardless of how you feel about Gen Z, it's undeniable that they're changing national politics. Generation Z is increasingly showing less loyalty to traditional political parties, many now more likely to identify as independent.

19:10So what is going on with the kids? I think the biggest misconception about Gen Z's politics right now is that all of a sudden they're all socialists. That is just not the case. They are embracing candidates who are offering new, bold ideas in the absence of those ideas from establishment Democrats. This week on America Actually, Gen Z researcher Rachel Jamfaza joins us to separate Gen Z fact versus fiction. It's not rocket science. And this is, you know, I keep saying like young voters aren't that complicated after all. It's pretty simple. Catch us every Saturday on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

19:45I'm Phoebe Judge. And for more than a decade, I've hosted the podcast Criminal, telling stories about people who've done wrong, been wronged or gotten caught somewhere in the middle. But while I was starting one of the very first true crime podcasts out there, I was also taking phone calls from my sister, from prison. This fall, I'm going on tour, and I'm telling a story I've never told before. My own. Get tickets at thisiscriminal.com slash live. Because you said your first connection to fashion was when you were six, and you drew historic figures and saints and virgins, kings and queens, and you said, anything dramatic?

20:29And they all had to die in some dramatic way, like a snake biting their boob or being beheaded. And I wondered what appealed to you about this gruesome drama at such a young age. Because I was already very, very gay, very dramatic. So secretly. No, I think the thing was that, I mean, my parents divorced when I was a child. when I was very young, three. And my brother stopped going to see my dad for multiple reasons and lawsuits and whatever. So I was very lonely going to my dad every second week. And very traumatized, obviously, also because my home was somewhere else. And I was at this person, this dad, that I've never met with my mother.

21:14I had no memory of him being with my mother ever or with my family. So it was a very depressive, sad start of the weekend. And my dad is a judge, so he's very strict, and he would never really adjust his planning towards children. So, I mean, we would have to go to, or I would have to go and do the things that he wanted to do, but he would be extremely good in explaining it. And I think the sadness that I had, he would completely kill it by over-dramatizing life and history and making everything look like a theater. So he would go to museums. And obviously, I mean, if you look at history, just classic global European history.

21:53Everybody gets murdered in crusades and castles get burned and raped and whatever. It's very bloody and painful. But he would turn it into some kind of very intense fairy tale. And that was the way how I would be completely hooked to it. And then in the evening, indeed, when it was like Saturday night, bed night, he would not go for a little cute Disney fairy tale. He would go for Cleopatra or some historic creature or historic story, which was all very intense and dramatic. And he would bring it in such an amazing way that I was just hooked to it. So, yeah, those moments when I was drawing, very early on I was, I mean, my brother was also much older than me, so I had quite a lot of single time, lonely time.

22:48so yeah I was drawing those figures and I was drawing with Cleopatra and Julie Caesar and Marie Antoinette and I loved it and all the attention went into obviously we had no idea how they would look like in their faces really maybe Marie Antoinette you would know but I would really like go into the details of what they were wearing because that would actually Cleopatra would be Cleopatra because she would wear that kind of smelly butter on her head and she would have cat eyes and she would wear some kind of she would be half naked and all of these characteristics of her look would actually make who she is and i think that's i think where we want to come is that that's i guess uh my first real uh understanding how clothes can create a person yeah or you can become who you are thanks to what you wear And what was the first piece of clothing that you became obsessed with as a child that you felt connected to your identity?

23:50I mean, we were not very ready to wear clothes orientated at home.

23:59I mean, as I grew up mostly on my mom's side, and since she was working so often, I kind of grew up with my grandparents, that amazing grandmother of 97. And my grandfather who passed away the year before at 100. So I was very blessed having them very long in my life. I was, at least, my brother and me stayed there at least four days a week. And they all, both of them were children of colonels in the Belgium army. So who did the First World War. And then my grandfather, when Belgium got liberated in 44, he also entered the army and then fought the Second World War. And then he also entered as a colonel in the Belgium army.

24:36So it's a whole family full of military people. And frivolous things as clothes is not really fitting into that concept. And it's really all about dignity and respect, and it's about family values, very traditional, a little bit bourgeois also, but it would definitely not be done to show off. I mean, you're not showing off your wealth or who you are by how you wear or what you dress. It would actually seem kind of vulgar, I think. in their world. So we didn't grow up in that. Clothes were really something about fitting in, showing respect to the situation where you are. Yeah. And for the rest, yeah, just the natural need of being warm and cold, whatever, like in the weather circumstances.

25:25So I don't think I ever really, I mean, besides these moments when I was drawing a bit of Cleopatras, I don't think the reality of clothes was really something that, the reality of fashion was very much there when I was a child. Also, I grew up in Bruges, which is a really beautiful city, but it's like a provincial town in the middle of nowhere in Belgium. So you don't have a lot of confrontation with anything artsy or fashiony or poor or contemporary. So I think, also I was also the little brother, So obviously I only wore the things that my brother didn't wear anymore my whole life. And then I think the first time I really wore something consciously with love and passion was, I guess, when I was 13, 14.

26:16I got my auntie, which loved me, I guess, a lot, decided to give me my very first pair of clothes, which were really bought for me. And so we went to H &M in Bruges, and it was a black hoodie. I was a black hoodie also because apparently I wasn't allowed to wear black when I was a child. It was also not done. So black was like, so I bought this black hoodie and I think it dissolved on my shoulders as most of my clothes that I still have. We are nothing wild. That's so good. Because you describe yourself as an annoying teenager and not a rebel, always asking questions in class. and your work has a lot of tension and risk embedded in it, which makes it very sexy.

27:05And do you live out danger through your creative work? I've had a lot of moments, at least. In Y Projects, I do remember there was a lot of moments where my stylist, Tamir Oshina Gissi, we were creating looks and being like, are we really going to do this? Are we really going to show this tomorrow on the runway during Paris Fashion Week? And I think that's also why I became who I became, because I did go for the challenges, and I never really went for the aesthetically accepted. And I think that's also probably why I'm such a good fit at Margiela, for example, because I don't think that Martin ever really was considering being accepted because of the beauty standards.

27:50So yeah, no, I like to challenge myself. I think I'm a very easily bored person and I go quite fast. And I think there's also a Belgium-ness to that, I feel. Belgium is not the most gorgeous country in the world, and I said that in some other interviews, that it's not like a given thing. Like the UK, for example. I mean, my boyfriend is from here, So you go walking in the South Downs and it's just like a film set all the time. Or everywhere you go, it's just gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. Belgium has been very industrialized and it's one big village. It's rainy. The UK is very rainy also, but at least you have your sights, which are fantastic.

28:38So, I mean, I think when you grow up in Belgium, you kind of have to find beauty in the hidden parts. And the unexpected, you need to like... find joy I think it's also why the Belgium civilians or why surrealism is so Belgian you know Magritte and this whole era and why also why the Belgians have such a dark humor because you have to find the joys somewhere where they're not where they're not so so yeah I think that's the kind of thing I do also I think in my in my work I try to find new perspectives on things and try to see things different and maybe not get accepted, maybe very often not. I love that your first choice of clothes was against the grain, even just the black hoodie.

29:30It's such a good start. Because you have a kind of self-belief in the way that gifted children have, but you credit much of your career to an insecurity complex. And do you think that insecurity demands acts of confidence so that doubt can't sabotage everything? Yeah. So if insecurity pushes acts of confidence, or needs acts of confidence, I mean, yeah, I guess so. I think you try to find to be accepted and seen and you try to find ways of getting compliments and then you are pushing your confidence completely. I'm very confident in my work. Extremely ballsy when I want to be and when I need to be.

30:26And it definitely comes from that moment where I think I'm maybe not talented enough or not funny enough or not sexy enough or whatever enough. I compensate with confidence. Yeah. It's such an interesting idea. I've never heard anyone say that. But when I was thinking about you saying that, I thought it's like you take the action and then the confidence follows into it. But without the action, you're just stuck with the insecurity and that's paralyzing. So sort of action in fashion without action, there's literally nothing. We have to make things. So it's a really good method to get, to move out of that kind of, you know, attack.