His highly-anticipated Maison Margiela Artisanal couture debut lands next month. So Glenn Martens might, perfectly justifiably, have seemed stretched thinner than a pair of undersized Diesel skinny jeans at this presentation. And yet there was no discernible sign of anything but total focus on this pre-spring collection from a designer whose creativity must be shot through with elastane.

“The collection is definitely a continuation of the last show,” he said as we ruffled through the rails. At that show the set was a riot of globally-sourced street art. For this lookbook the background jostled with 100-odd “very cute” onlookers, some from Diesel HQ, and some street cast in its hometown of Breganza.

The lookbook was a more concentrated distillation of Martens’ and his teams’ broader seaso

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