“It’s About Elevating the Familiar”: Glenn Martens on his H&M Collection

Glenn Martens: When Sophie and the H&M team approached me, it was quite an unusual setup. I don’t have my own brand, so there wasn’t an existing creative universe to pull from. Normally, H&M collaborates with brands, not individual designers. The smart thing they did was start from their own best-selling pieces, their wardrobe archetypes. From there, I could reinterpret those familiar garments through my own lens, experimenting with construction, proportion, and transformation. That’s very much what I did at Y/Project: playing with how clothes are built and finding new expressions within something that already exists.

We started quite simply with hoodies, sweaters, pants, trench coats the everyday essentials. But after a while, it began to feel like a technical exercise, so we wanted to bring in more color, more storytelling. That’s when the idea of Britishness came in. The British wardrobe is so universal everyone recognizes the tartan skirt, the checked shirt, the trench coat, the tweed blazer. Those archetypes became a great base to play with. I felt it was important to push the spirit of Y/Project further into this collection. Y/Project really shaped me as a creative director; it’s the brand that grew with me and reflects my personal vision the most. So, in the end, this collaboration became a kind of celebration of H&M’s everyday icons, but also of the experimental DNA that defines my work.

We started from H&M’s best-selling pieces, so the fabric choices followed that logic a trench is a trench, denim is denim, a sweatshirt is a sweatshirt. We stayed close to those archetypes. The focus wasn’t on luxury materials but on reworking everyday fabrics through technique and construction. The exclusivity of this collection comes from the concept and experimentation, not from high-end silks or heavy embroidery. It’s about elevating the familiar through design.

Honestly, there weren’t many issues. H&M has incredible technical know-how and a lot of experience working with experimental designers. I brought in samples from my own work, which made the process very smooth. We adjusted details like foiling, cuts, or volume, but that’s standard in any design process. In the end, whether you’re at H&M or at a luxury house, it’s quite a similar process, the only difference is scale. You’re just producing thousands of meters instead of twenty.

I’ve always been a sucker for accessories. If I were a woman, I’d probably be a Christmas tree covered in jewels, I love a bit of sparkle, though I try to keep it in check. Accessories really capture the spirit of a brand in one small, wearable object. For this collection, the bag is my favorite. It feels almost like a sculpture, fully foiled, elegant yet raw, sleek but versatile. It’s wearable and artistic at once, which sums up everything I love about fashion.

The boundaries between couture and streetwear keep getting softer, but I still see them as very different worlds. Couture is about craftsmanship, the hours, the technique, the artistry of building something extraordinary, not necessarily wearable. Streetwear, on the other hand, lives in the real world; it has to move with you through daily life. What’s exciting now is how they influence each other. At times, couture borrows the ease of streetwear, and streetwear gains poetry from couture. Through H&M’s production and accessibility, some of those couture-like ideas, things once only for the runway can now exist in real wardrobes. That’s a beautiful evolution.

I think people are going to have fun with it maybe even laugh a little. My work often plays with absurdity and challenges the norm, so it might feel unexpected for H&M. But that’s exactly what makes it exciting. H&M is known for its essential, everyday pieces, and here they’re giving space to something more experimental and a bit surreal. Even if someone walks into the store, laughs, and thinks, “this is crazy” that moment of curiosity and joy means we’ve succeeded.

Luckily, the H&M collection was finished by the end of 2024, so it didn’t overlap too much with Margiela. Still, when you start a new chapter as a creative director, it’s incredibly intense, you have to focus completely to define your vision. The only way to survive that is to disconnect whenever possible. I have a dog and a little countryside house, and every spare moment I’m out in nature cutting branches, making bonfires, getting muddy. It’s the perfect way to clear my head and stay human in the middle of all the chaos.