“When Diesel was created in 1978, we were deep in the middle of the oil crisis and diesel was an alternative fuel to gasoline. So, I chose the name Diesel because I wanted to create a line of products that was an alternative to the existing ones.” So explained Renzo Rosso in an interview with a private jet periodical back in 2014. Just as much as the washes and distressed fabrications applied to Diesel’s denim, its founder’s irreverently sideways approach is central to the brand’s margin-justifying identity.
A decade later Diesel remains intrinsically alternative, yet under the design directorship of Glenn Martens (a soul every bit as irreverent as Rosso) it has gained an additional level of sophistication. In this pre-collection Martens continued to dig into the Peter Pan paradox excavated in the last couple of collections by applying “grown-up” gestures to an offer that has for so long been pitched almost exclusively at the young.
A trawl through the showroom revealed one of its strongest throughlines to be the meandering Aran undulations of traditionally patterned knitwear, which was sometimes delivered piped for extra old-school-core. This was then replicated in lasered or pigment treatments on denim or faux denim fabrics in a manner that sometimes transformed the original patterns into tire treads. On full-length dresses or tracksuits the distorted but still recognizable pattern created a pleasing contextual frisson.
Another seasonal gesture towards broadening Diesel’s generational appeal was made via argyle, the tartan offshoot. Diesel’s supreme technical prowess in denim manipulation was deployed on pants and skirts flocked into argyle relief and there were knit pieces upon which some of the pattern’s diamond parts were delivered partly unpeeled from the whole of the garment. There were also some fine faded cotton pieces in sepia-faded washed herringbone.
Further experiments in generational dislocation included twinset structures delivered with biker architecture in denim or denim-ish or leather or leather-ish fabrications. Silky blouses in denim tones came with elongated collars begging to be twisted into pussy bows, and grungily thrashed check flannels were used in tailoring. Washed out x-ray florals, especially when applied to a check print ringer tee, were emblematic of the elusive smoothie Martens was working to blend. “We are very happy with this collection,” he said: “obviously it’s a pre-, so very product-focused, and it is a continuation of the strategy we started a few seasons ago.”