Diesel, like sex, is for everyone

A hymn to sex, nightlife and pleasure: at the centre of Diesel's FW23 catwalk the models strutted around a mountain of 200,000 Durex condoms (another 300,000 will be gifted in stores worldwide during the month of April). «Sex positivity is something extraordinary. We at Diesel like to play and we do it seriously. Have fun, respect each other, be safe. For a healthy life!» said Glenn Martens, the creative director who has brought lustre back to the historic Italian brand and who this season presented 72 looks with a focus on sexiness, clubbing, Y2K.

The garments were a continuation of Martens' previous collections, the first look being quintessential: a distressed leather jacket with faded lettering paired with distressed denim that doubled as boots. Vivid hems, glossy prints and a clever contrast between oversized volumes and bare skin are now key features of the new Diesel, but this time they reached a new level of sophistication with digitally printed frayed jeans, spayed paint, dresses deconstructing as models walked. Underwear, a staple in the brand's lifestyle universe, brings back the classic slogan with a winking variation 'FOR SUCSEXFUL LIVING'. The outwear consists of shiny puffer overcoats and leather jackets dipped in copper pigments and treated with iridescent tones. On dresses, tops and skirts stand out distorted and smiling mouths, a legacy of archive campaigns, while a homage to "protected" sexual freedom becoming the protagonist of a collaborative capsule on T-shirts uniting the D of Diesel with that of Durex.

Accomplice to the return of Y2K, of which the brand has been both proponent and passive spectator, and the artistic vision of one of the most innovative personalities of the contemporary scene, the brand confirms that it can generate a cult so pervasive it borders the adjective of 'national-popular', after a decade in which the Diesel name had been synonymous with banal jeans and little else. Throngs of people crowded outside the show, some wearing a full brand look, others a simple logo tee, proof that Diesel belongs to everyone, just like the themes it deals with, just like sex, in a microcosm of coolness that speaks the language of Gen Z. The charisma of Glenn Martens, already renown in its more intellectual declination for Y/Project and in its higher version for Couture in collaboration with Jean Paul Gaultier, emerges in Renzo Rosso's brand in its more mainstream and pop version, in a fragile but effective balance between extravagance and pragmatism. The result is pop, loud, aggregating and democratic as only football would know how to be.