Diesel teams up with denim competitor Lee

Italian fashion brand Diesel has unveiled a collaboration with denim competitor Lee as part of its Diesel Loves programme that aims to bring brands together to share creative and manufacturing resources to find impactful solutions.

Diesel Loves, envisioned by creative director Glenn Martens, aims to challenge the industry standard of brand collaborations by making it more purposeful by applying collective creativity to the perennial problem of overproduction.

Described as an open call-to-action for fellow brands, Diesel hopes that its competitors will consider sharing existing materials, manufacturing, and creative resources to empower change. Diesel states that it will put its unsold stock at the disposal of a joint creative team while inviting a brand collaborator to do the same. The result will be a limited-edition capsule made entirely from existing materials, a 50/50 between the two brands.

For each Diesel Loves collection, 100 percent of the profits will go to UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency via the OTB Foundation, Diesel’s parent company’s philanthropic arm, which is working with UNHCR on several projects in different parts of the world.

The first partner for the programme is with American denim company Lee, which features a limited-edition capsule collection featuring jeans that are either Diesel denim on the front and Lee on the back or vice versa. Each of the 3,000 pairs of Diesel Loves Lee jeans are “one of a kind”.

A preview of the Diesel Loves Lee capsule is available on Diesel.com for Europe and Japan, with the full collection launching in March 2024 on both brands’ websites.