After 10 Years of Glenn Martens, the Y/Project Story Is Still Unfolding
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Y/Project is a special club. On the streets of Paris, East London, or Berlin, there exist some particularly striking garments — asymmetrical, buckling in twists and folds, simultaneously growing and decaying around their (equally sculpted) owners. Perhaps you’ll see one; perhaps you’ll even compliment it. But an innocent inquiry as to said garment’s source will earn you a look from the owner that’s part thrilled, part pitying, and part supercilious. Because you didn’t know.
“Y/Project has turned into my world”: Glenn Martens, adoptive father to this club, has taken time out of his double creative directorship (he also heads up Diesel, but you knew that already) to tell me about it. And, despite a punishing schedule — and the fact he spoke to us what-feels-like-yesterday for our Frontpage story — he is thorough, considered, perhaps even tentative. “At Y/Project,” he muses, “we try to give questions, but never answers.”
Like many exclusive clubs, Y/Project was inherited. Yohan Serfaty was the original ‘Y’; after the designer’s untimely passing in 2013, Martens took the reins of a brand “in mourning.” The challenge to step out of Serfaty’s shadow was immense (and shadow it was: the early collections of Y/Project are dark and austere, like a rough-edged, leather-bound Rick Owens). The process was slow and respectful at first, but Martens “wasn’t Yohan.” The direction had to change.
And so, Y/Project was rebuilt: rebuilt with architectural precision, radically distorted; rebuilt with vast sheets of denims and leathers fashioned into garments both cavernous and revealing; rebuilt, crucially, with a newfound army of young, adoring fans.
But the techniques, the silhouettes, the rigidity of material and fluidity of result, are what live on. Serfaty, Martens says, was a “master in leather, which defines a specific way of cutting and constructing garments,” and to which the brand has remained faithful. As the red thread across its entire lifetime, Y/Project’s signature became not the look of its clothes but the way they were made – in constructing a brand, the construction of garments came out king.
The intricacies, the insider quips, the references both medieval and modern, came later. Martens pinpoints the first dedicated womenswear collection, AW16, as a turning point. Realising Y/Project’s femininity seemed only to solidify its new direction. (Martens’ favorite look was an androgynous one: a single-sleeved gray hoodie tucked into triple-belted, chapped jeans.) Here, the “Belgian surrealism, the jokes, the opulence and versatility — which are the defining pillars of Y/Project”, really came to life.
Not everything worked immediately, though. Martens recalls the infamous Y/Project ‘Janties’, a pair of denim underwear which, upon their release 7 years ago, wound up on the Ellen DeGeneres show as one of the most ridiculous items ever designed. But this doesn’t phase Martens – in fact, it’s the closest he ever comes to boasting. “We’re often a bit ahead of time,” he smiles. “It’s nice to see that the ‘Janties’ have been adopted by many other brands.”
When a label achieves cult status, people wear it to join the club — beautifully constructed clothes, so the thinking goes, stand in for a beautifully constructed identity. But true membership of the Y/Project club requires more than a vague cultural awareness or a healthy bank account.
The designer explains: “there are multiple ways to wear a jacket. If you want you can wear it as styled in the show, if you want you can deconstruct it, or you can take layers off to be more revealing and sexy. Many different personalities or moods can be represented in one piece.” Chuck Y/Project on for a quick, clouty fix, and you’ll be sniffed out. Like Martens, Y/Project’s family know that its beauty is in questions, not answers. “Who am I? How do I feel today? How do I want people to perceive me?” Well, that’s up to you. “Every single garment is free to interpretation,” says Martens. Keep guessing.
