When H&M announced its latest designer collaboration with Belgian visionary Glenn Martens, anticipation spread quickly across the global fashion community. Martens, known for his architectural tailoring and rebellious wit at Y/Project and his acclaimed tenure at Diesel, has long blurred the line between fashion and sculpture. His partnership with H&M, unveiled at a “twisted British house party” inside London’s Skinners Hall on 22 October 2025, proved that accessible fashion can also be deeply conceptual.
The launch event was a heady blend of irony and opulence. Celebrities including Cynthia Erivo, Jodie Turner-Smith, and Richard E. Grant arrived in re-engineered denim, braided knits, and tartan coats that folded and unfolded like origami. The Sugababes performed an intimate set while the venue’s candlelit arches and mirrored floors reflected what Vogue Scandinavia later called “London at its best: eccentric, self-aware, and unapologetically playful.”
South African personalities Ponahalo Mojapelo, Nkuley Masemola, and Geenah Philander attended the local Johannesburg preview, a nod to the collection’s global reach. The pieces became available to the South African public on 30 October 2025 at H&M Sandton City and through Superbalist.com, marking a significant moment for H&M’s growing presence in the African luxury retail landscape.
A Family of Archetypes
In the campaign, British icons Joanna Lumley and Richard E. Grant played matriarch and patriarch to an imagined “Glenn Martens fashion family.” The “children” — models Clym Evernden, Audrey Marnay, Jum Kuochnin, Heather Diamond Strongarm, and Clara Denison — embodied Martens’ idea of garments with multiple identities that could be formal, ironic, rebellious, or refined.
“I see the collection as a big family of garments,” Martens explained. “They all have different personalities—formal, informal, loud, quiet, rule-breaking, classic—and can be styled and interpreted in different ways.”
This design philosophy defines the collection’s core. Martens deconstructs the codes of British heritage such as tartan, tweed, and the trench coat, and rebuilds them into something anarchic yet familiar. Wired hems allow each piece to be reshaped by the wearer, encouraging play and expression. Even the denim manipulation, with its twisted seams and distorted pleats, turns conventional tailoring into an act of creative rebellion.
An Accessible Avant-Garde
For Ann-Sofie Johansson, H&M’s Head of Design and Chief Creative Advisor, this may be the brand’s most inventive collaboration yet. “Glenn is such a talent and a radical thinker,” Johansson said. “These are exceptional designs that play with archetypes and the very essence of what it means to get dressed each day.”
H&M’s history of designer partnerships has democratized high fashion for two decades, featuring names such as Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney, Rei Kawakubo, Mugler, and Rabanne. Glenn Martens extends this legacy with an intellectual approach to ready-to-wear. His designs invite interpretation and encourage the wearer to interact with the garment rather than simply wear it.
The sculptural trench coats, asymmetric dresses, and theatrical jewellery channel the decadence of British couture through a postmodern lens. Each piece feels both archival and futuristic, bridging London’s aristocratic past with its streetwise present.
The Verdict
Photographed by @rawkuvai and Jabu.pix, the campaign imagery is lush, layered, and tactile. It captures the essence of Martens’ design philosophy, showing that fashion need not be literal to be powerful. His collaboration with H&M is not just a collection but a study in contradiction, combining subversion and sophistication, structure and freedom, tradition and innovation.
In an industry driven by the fleeting and the viral, Martens has delivered something lasting: a wearable reflection on identity and expression.
The H&M x Glenn Martens collection is available at H&M Sandton City and online at Superbalist.com. For more global coverage, visit H&M’s official site.
