PARIS — For someone with a degree in interior design, it’s taken Glenn Martens a long time to put his stamp on a store.

Since joining Diesel as creative director in 2020, he’s overseen several openings, introducing a new retail concept in Turin in 2021. But none has been as personal as the Italian lifestyle brand’s new Paris flagship on Rue Saint-Honoré, whose textured design echoes his experimental approach to design, with garments that are twisted and shredded to expose their construction.

“Shop experience was not our first priority,” said Martens, whose primary focus has been repositioning Diesel’s collections and establishing a strong art direction for the flagship property of OTB, the fashion conglomerate controlled by Italian industrialist Renzo Rosso.

“I had a lot of work to do on the garments, and the clothes and the licenses, and now we are starting with this Paris experience to actually really engage into it,” he said. “Paris was my biggest stress point, to be honest.”

Though born and educated in Belgium, Martens considers the French capital his hometown, having moved here at the beginning of his career to work for Jean Paul Gaultier, and subsequently take on the creative direction of French label Y/Project.  

That’s why he brought a special attention to the 6,300-square-foot Paris store, which sits near brands including Paul Smith, Moynat, Gucci, Balenciaga and Acne Studios.

While the location may seem surprising for Diesel, which positions itself in the “alternative luxury” segment, Martens said the brand has the bandwidth to serve a high-end consumer.

“We believe that everything is getting merged more and more. I mean, why do we do fashion week, next to Prada and Bottega Veneta, with a lifestyle brand? Because I think we can be everywhere,” Martens said. “We’re talking about a full society of clients that also means some clients have a more luxury position, and Diesel has that.”

The two-story location, which opened to the public on July 5, carries the full brand assortment, from ready-to-wear to denim, bodywear, bags, footwear, eyewear, watches, jewelry and fragrances.

True to the origins of the brand, which popularized distressed denim, the store design combines the brand’s signature shade of red with industrial metal elements that have been hammered to simulate wear and tear.

Central to the concept are billboards covered in layers of posters evoking Diesel’s provocative advertising campaigns from the ’90s.

“Normally in those days of Versace, it was all about the top models, but with Diesel it was really more the message which was actually pushed forward, and it was very radical,” Martens said. “Every season when a new campaign comes up, we’re just going to glue it on, like in the metros in Paris.”

The billboards line the entrance space on the ground floor, which is home to the runway collection, alongside a capsule collection of solarized denim with a metal foil print that is available exclusively at the store, and a selection of the label’s bestselling 1DR handbags.  

“The runway collection is not something you will put in a mall. It needs a shopping ceremony, it needs a lot of attention because some of those garments have a whole story to tell,” the designer said, noting the collection was available in fewer than one-fifth of Diesel’s stores. “It’s not your basic T-shirt.”

The second room is lined in a collage made of torn posters, varnished to a high gloss, and carries sneakers and baseball caps.

“[Rosso] basically invented distressed denim, and one of the most amazing things that we do at Diesel is to continue this legacy of treatments and working on the materials, always with a bit of a distressed vibe — so the coatings, making things dirty, making things alive and giving it a soul or a patina,” Martens explained.

“It’s also quite nice to do that in this really fancy beautiful luxury street with a really fancy beautiful store,” he added.

With its glossy red walls, the denim room in the back stands apart. “That’s because, of course, red is the opposite color of blue and then the blue, the indigo, pops out even more,” Martens said.

Meanwhile, on the first floor, the main women’s and men’s collections are displayed in a minimalist space with stucco walls and exposed ceilings.

Though Diesel remains without a chief executive officer following the departure of Erardo Poletto in February, it continues to expand its network of more than 400 monobrand stores, with openings planned in Miami and Mykonos next week, to be followed by Dubai, Antwerp and Beijing later this year.

Up next for Martens is the redesign of Diesel’s flagship on Piazza San Babila in Milan. It makes for long days for the designer, but he hopes the Paris store conveys the “joyful” spirit of the 1DR bag and the Oval D emblem that appears on many of the clothes. “Love it. Enjoy it. I think it’s fun,” he said.