H&M continues to invest heavily in its regular line-up of designer collaborations that it releases each autumn and has just announced its creative partner for 2025 — Glenn Martens.

The retailer said it’s “a landmark partnership” with the Belgium-born designer who’s “known for testing the boundaries between streetwear and couture and will bring his creative vision to H&M” for the AW25 season.

There were no other details released but expectations are high that it will be an interesting tie-up. Intriguingly, while Martens has an undeniably high profile, he’s not as well known as some of the names H&M has collaborated with such as Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney, Versace, Balmain and Moschino.

Martens recently stepped down from the creative helm of Y/Project, where he’d been for over 10 years having become creative director in 2013. The ready-to-wear brand had been a good fit for his experimental approach.

He’s also worked with Diesel and Jean Paul Gaultier, as well as chairing the jury of the Hyères Festival’s fashion category.

But we’ll have to wait quite a while to see what he comes up with for H&M. 

The retailer first launched its designer collabs back in 2004 with Karl Lagerfeld, then creative director of Chanel creating a shopper frenzy when the pieces were released. The initiative was hugely influential and has been a sellout every year since.

Guest collabs after that inclued Stella McCartney (2005), Viktor & Rolf (2006), Roberto Cavalli (2007), Comme des Garçons by Rei Kawakubo (2008), Matthew Williamson (spring 2009), Jimmy Choo (autumn 2009), Sonia Rykiel (spring 2010), Lanvin (autumn 2010), Versace (2011), Marni (spring 2012), Maison Martin Margiela, (autumn 2012) Isabel Marant (2013), Alexander Wang (2014), Balmain (2015),  Kenzo (2016), Erdem (2017), Moschino (2018), Giambattista Valli (2019), Simone Rocha (2021), Mugler (spring 2023), and Rabanne (autumn 2023).

Last month H&M announced a re-release programme of some of its best pre-owned collab items.