Diesel, like sex, is for everyone Glenn Martens painted red condoms, clubbing and Y2K

A hymn to sex, nightlife and pleasure: at the centre of Diesel's FW23 catwalk the models strutted around a mountain of 200,000 Durex condoms (another 300,000 will be gifted in stores worldwide during the month of April). «Sex positivity is something extraordinary. We at Diesel like to play and we do it seriously. Have fun, respect each other, be safe. For a healthy life!» said Glenn Martens, the creative director who has brought lustre back to the historic Italian brand and who this season presented 72 looks with a focus on sexiness, clubbing, Y2K.

Accomplice to the return of Y2K, of which the brand has been both proponent and passive spectator, and the artistic vision of one of the most innovative personalities of the contemporary scene, the brand confirms that it can generate a cult so pervasive it borders the adjective of 'national-popular', after a decade in which the Diesel name had been synonymous with banal jeans and little else. Throngs of people crowded outside the show, some wearing a full brand look, others a simple logo tee, proof that Diesel belongs to everyone, just like the themes it deals with, just like sex, in a microcosm of coolness that speaks the language of Gen Z. The charisma of Glenn Martens, already renown in its more intellectual declination for Y/Project and in its higher version for Couture in collaboration with Jean Paul Gaultier, emerges in Renzo Rosso's brand in its more mainstream and pop version, in a fragile but effective balance between extravagance and pragmatism. The result is pop, loud, aggregating and democratic as only football would know how to be.