Some goodbyes call for silence. Glenn Martens chose the opposite - music at full blast. His final show for Diesel, held in Milan during Fashion Week, was the spring-summer 2027 collection and at the same time a summary of six years in which the Belgian designer turned the brand into one of the most recognisable signatures in contemporary fashion.

Once again, Martens took clothes apart in order to put them back together. Denim, the foundation of Diesel, was treated and manipulated until it started to look like leather. The pieces seemed to be playing with each other: a T-shirt turned into a dress, a bra or a bandeau, a shirt took on the look of a coat, and jackets and trousers came down the runway unpicked, twisted and partly torn open.

There was room for romance too. Orchid motifs, cut out and appliquéd onto knitted jumpers and polo shirts, sheer fabrics, flowers and pieces resembling lingerie stood shoulder to shoulder with classic jeans, blazers and skirts. Provocation, yes, but with a system - exactly what Martens became known for.

Martens is leaving Diesel to focus on Maison Margiela, a house known for the same approach to deconstructing clothes. For Diesel, this marks the end of an era in which a completely ordinary fabric became an almost endless territory for ideas. For the buyer, it means another season in which ripped jeans are art rather than a reason to take them to the tailor.

Fashion has always sold us illusion, and we know it. But jeans hold a special place in this region's memory: generations from the former Yugoslavia used to travel to Trieste to buy the real thing. The fabric that was once a symbol of freedom from across the border is today, on a Milan runway, a canvas for conceptual art. The question is how much of that art will ever reach an ordinary wardrobe - and at what price?