Glenn Martens is a fashion lover’s designer. For those within the know, the name elicits an avid excitement not felt since Demna appeared on the scene, and the Belgian designer has cultivated a feverish fanbase over the previous few years.

With a trademark mixture of irreverence, gratuitous weirdness, humour and sexiness, Martens disregards tradition and subverts norms at every turn. It has paid off. The whole lot he touches seems to show to gold, from his widely lauded revitalisation of Diesel, where he’s creative director, to knock-out collections for Y/Project. The brand’s AW22 collection, Dazed wrote on the time, “will certainly go down in fashion lore.” Speaking about an exceptional couture presentation for Jean Paul Gaultier which Martens guest designed, Dazed wrote: “A collective silence fell over the style world. And that’s to not be sycophantic, it was really, really good.” It’s no wonder Chloe Sevigny turned to the gathering’s final piece when it got here to picking a wedding dress. 

Lately, nevertheless, a successful fashion brand has to encompass greater than just clothing. It’s about lifestyle, with make-up lines, fragrances and skincare, alongside various other accoutrements, becoming increasingly the norm. So, following on from some co-branded Lelo x Diesel sex toys earlier this yr, Martens has now turned his attention to fragrance, overseeing his first perfume for the brand since becoming creative director.

D by Diesel is a gender-fluid fragrance created in collaboration with L’Oreal and perfumers Nisrine Grillié, Shyamala Maisondieu and Louise Turner. A warm, joyful scent, Martens says the perfume is a continuation of Diesel’s identity and ethos. Describing the values of the brand as energetic, positive and sexy, with a “no bullshit mentality”, he says these drive every part they do, including the collections and now the fragrance. “The thing with fragrance that is absolutely amazing is which you can – in a single product – sum up the entire brand,” he says over a Zoom call from Paris. “The perfume reconfirms all of what we’ve been doing in a single little bottle – it’s very fun, there’s a little bit of irreverence in there. It’s really a few spirit and a way of life.”

Given how closely tied the fragrance is to the brand’s identity, and Martens’s undeniable penchant for the fabric, it is going to come as no surprise that denim was a key inspiration, with the scent drawing on each the spirit and smell of a cushty pair of jeans. “An excellent pair of denim, well cut, good quality, will probably be there each moment of your life,” says Martens. “You wear it along with your high heels and you possibly can go to cocktails, you wear it with sneakers, you possibly can go raving, you wear it with mountain climbing boots, you will the mountains – it really becomes an element of you.” 

With the fragrance, he says, the brand had the identical approach – their aim was for the scent to be there to help us in every moment of our lives, through all experiences now we have, to ensure we nail them and achieve success. “I hope that this perfume can try this as denim does,” Martens says. In addition to a metaphorical inspiration, a cushty pair of jeans was an olfactory and visual one as well. Housed in a recyclable, refillable bottle, with a cap styled to resemble the rivets on a pair of Diesel jeans, the vegan fragrance comprises notes of cotton, alongside sustainably-sourced bourbon vanilla from Madagascar, lavender from Provence and notes of ginger.  

But for Martens, the ingredients were almost irrelevant. Remarking throughout our interview that he’s not knowledgeable perfumer – “I’m not a nose, I just can say it smells very nice!” he says jokingly at one point – what the designer was really desirous about achieving with the perfume was a universality and conveying a message of inclusivity and democracy. The fragrance was developed with the people in mind, listening to what they like and creating an emotional connection. 

“We’re not talking about a distinct segment perfume, we’re talking a few very global perfume talking to a whole lot of different people,” he says. Had the fragrance been for a “Glenn Martens” brand, he says, he probably would have taken a distinct approach. “It will really should be what I personally, as an egocentric person, like. But this isn’t about being an egocentric person, that is about people.”

Together with his own preferences for fragrance, Martens has been on a journey. Describing himself as a really consistent person in relation to his personal aesthetic and routine, the designer says he discovered his scent 15 years ago and hasn’t strayed from it since. “Once I find something [I like], I’ll wear it eternally and I’ll buy every part in multiple sets.” As a teen, nevertheless, he was more guided by the favored trends of the day and highschool peer pressure, when the one accepted options for a teenage boy in Belgium were CK One, Hugo Boss and Jean Paul Gaultier.  

“I used to be a follower,” he says. “While you grow up in a provincial town, like I did in Bruges, you have got to slot in, so those perfumes were form of an obligation.” It’s due to these experiences growing up that he so admires the younger generations today, in whom he sees far more individuality and a celebration of personhood. It was Gen Z that he turned to when it got here to formulating the scent. These “people who find themselves shaping the longer term,” as Martens refers to them, from France, the UK and Germany were called upon to present feedback on various formulations of the fragrance throughout the testing period. It was a democratic approach that aimed to land on a scent that connected and engaged with the biggest number of individuals. 

“We actually made sure that the testing process was done no matter gender or sexuality, religion, background,” Martens says. “I believe it’s very vital that a perfume, a world brand, talks in regards to the society that they consider in and that they would love to see in the longer term. All-inclusiveness is core to every part we do.” This ethos is something that’s clearly very vital to Martens, a subject that comes up throughout the interview. When discussing Ella Synder, who has acted because the face for the brand since Martens joined, he talks about how vital it’s that she is an activist. 

“While you’re in a world brand like Diesel, it comes with a responsibility because you have got a lot power to confer with so many individuals from so many various parts of the world,” he says. “So you have to show love and acceptance.” It’s an impetus that also drove the casting for the campaign, which moderately than starring only one single celebrity face, features 35 different models from world wide, including Snyder in addition to Deaken Bluman, Nathan Hopkinson (aka Curlyfrysfeed) and Omizs.

“I didn’t feel that was a great process for Diesel,” Martens says of the more old-school tradition of getting a single celebrity who embodies the scent. “We actually desired to be more global, so it’s more the smell of a generation – that’s where we wish to go together with Diesel.” Working with such diverse casting, and prioritising real people and talent over models in campaigns, has taught Martens rather a lot, he says, particularly in regards to the principles of young people nowadays and the direction he desires to take the brand ultimately. “Once I was their age, 20, I believe I used to be far more narrow-minded,” he says. “I believe it is very vital that we reflect their tone of voice and what they consider in.” 

Looking forward to future Diesel fragrances, Martens says that while perfumes are something they love doing, a pleasant way of talking in regards to the brand, for the moment they are only specializing in D for Diesel and giving “the child just a little little bit of time to grow up.” He has enjoyed the method though and values the various opportunities it has provided him with. “I do think experiencing as much as possible, different situations in life, keeps you curious and open-minded,” he says. “It’s very vital to all the time see that there’s something else happening outside of your comfort zone and bubble. All these projects I work on help me stay aware and keep my brain alive.” 

In celebration of D by Diesel’s launch, Dazed is giving freely 2,000 samples to Dazed readers. In your likelihood to win, enroll here.

D by Diesel is now available in Europe. It’ll launch within the US and Japan in September, and the remainder of Asia in 2023.