Re-writing the rules of e-commerce

In 1978 Renzo Rosso founded Diesel on three key principles: passion, individuality and self-expression. Over 40 years later and the brand is still bursting with all three making it not just a fashion label but a veritable lifestyle “for successful living” with its own distinct community.

We wanted to start from the brand’s community when we redesigned diesel.com. We set out to create a digital space where the company and its customers could really connect, not just through the full range of shoppable products but through a bold approach and full immersion in the brand experience.

The site is mobile first with a simple structure. This leaves space for the strong editorial content to tell the engaging stories close to the heart of the brand and to its community.

As a brand that has always thought outside the box, Diesel needed a unique user experience. To achieve this, we broke with tradition and completely banished black from the entire interface. We replaced it with the bright red of the logo to make it bold and identifiable. We combined this with a grid-like structure with asymmetric elements and micro interactions to represent a brand that breaks with tradition while still paying attention to even the smallest detail.

Diesel is a passionate advocate for sustainability in fashion so the section of the site dedicated to its sustainability initiatives was an important part of the project. These include the Diesel Library, which offers evergreen denim essentials that can be worn season after season, Diesel Rehab a collection made entirely out of recycled denim and Diesel Second Hand which involves the repair and resale of Diesel denims.

“House of Diesel” is the title of Diesel’s e-commerce loyalty program and, as the name suggests, it represents the true home of the brand’s community. So, as well as clearly explaining how the program works the section had to be visually appealing. To do this we created a dynamic animation that plays on the strong brand colour and asymmetric visual language of the whole website. Combined with Diesel’s campaign imagery the animation creates an aesthetic that is half house party half VIP lounge, because House of Diesel is the hottest private venue that everyone wants to get into.