Starting this season, Y/PROJECT merges men’s and women’s wear into one unified collection that will be presented twice a year during Paris Men’s Fashion Week. Glenn Martens has decided to break away from the intense pace of four fashion weeks a year in order to free more time for creativity and experimentation.
Creative Director Glenn Martens unveils for Autumn-Winter 2021 a virtual runway show set in utter darkness where models walk to an opera soundtrack. Marking the brand’s evolution to an established house in the Parisian fashion landscape, AW21 is Y/PROJECT’s largest, most ambitious collection to date.
This new season is a lesson in blurring the lines of the ordinary and challenging the accepted norms of garment making. Silhouettes twist and twirl, creating sinuous curves that seem to be frozen in time. A metallic wire directly integrated into the fabric, an innovative design concept first explored for AW17, turns pants, skirts, dresses, or jackets into an opportunity for playfulness and versatility. Bourgeois equestrian-print knitwear can go, rogue, as the wires are distorted and morphed into abstract shapes. This new iteration of Martens’ disruptive signature aesthetic is prolonged into a new line of must-have malleable bags – clutch, tote bag, and shoulder bag.
Necklines are multiplied, transfiguring classic pieces into modular must-haves, from coat and jacket to sweaters and tank tops. A fleece hoodie can alternatively be worn as a crew neck, polo neck, or turtleneck. This design feature brings a baroque feel to familiar pieces. Double-layered pieces are another example of mind-bending designs: shirts and shirt dresses are doubled with an extra buttoned layer of fabric which can be styled in manifold ways, from formal to fully deconstructed, allowing maximal expression of individuality.
Y/PROJECT signature styles – multi-layered tulle leggings, panel-detailed coats, sweaters, and pants – are still punctuating the collection, and are joined by new showstopper designs such as the trompe l’oeil western removable denim chaps. The rose-shaped earrings from SS21 have inspired a new romantic yet pop jewelry range inspired by hibiscus, forget-me-nots, and daisies.
While continuing the effusive and versatile silhouettes the label is known for, this season Glenn Martens is creating perfectly readable yet bold concepts running consistently through the collection.
This season, Y/PROJECT extends its collaboration with outerwear expert Canada Goose to a rainwear capsule, including oversized parkas and capes. The Paris-based label also partners with Brazilian pop icon Melissa on a line of shoes, featuring baroque mules and Persian rug slides.
Y/PROJECT x MELISSA
“The Y/PROJECT x Melissa shoe collaboration is a nod to Victorian vases, profusely adorned and embellished, merged with the popular British tradition of porcelain vases shaped as miniature court shoes, distorting the idea of preciosity. The design ethos of Y/PROJECT has always been about the blending and bending of historical references and pop culture, of past and present, of high and low. This eco-friendly collaboration reflects a girl’s dream to wear a crystal shoe but with all the comfort Melissa is renowned for.”
-Glenn Martens
Y/PROJECT x CANADA GOOSE
“The second chapter of the Y/PROJECT x Canada Goose collaboration is exploring a new dimension of technical and functional outerwear: the protection from rain. We imagined extra-long waterproof overcoats and capes, covering up the body from head to toe, with drawstrings on both sides in order to create draped volumes reminiscent of opera curtains from the Belle Epoque. The signature twists of Y/PROJECT, versatility, playfulness, and historical references, remain the guideline of this new collaboration with outerwear expert Canada Goose.”
-Glenn Martens