Starting your show more than an hour late is not the greatest way to make a first impression. Stefano Gallici, who was promoted from menswear designer to creative director at Ann Demeulemeester when Ludovic de Saint Sernin exited after just six months, wasn’t served by the distant venue or the near total darkness in which we waited either.
Having joined the brand in 2020, the 20-something Gallici does have a decent handle on Demeulemeester signatures like androgynous tailoring and white shirts and leather bibs and harnesses. The royal blue of a stretchy sheer dress looked like it was inspired by the same color in an iconic spring 1998 Demeulemeester show. Kirsten Owen, who appeared in the lineup tonight, walked that runway 25 years ago. But things were weighed down here by multipocketed pants and overskirts and the ribbons that trailed off many of the looks and dragged on the runway—all 100 meters of it. Demeulemeester was a most poetical designer, but she also stood for a kind of rigor.
Preshow, Gallici posted a handwritten note to his Instagram account that closed with a kind of mantra: “Awareness and respect, rather than deference and orthodoxy.” That sounds fair enough. Tastes have changed since Demeulemeester was making her definitive 1990s collections, and brands have become too comfortable with unfiltered reissues. What this sweeping collection lacked was its own sense of definitiveness. That may come with more time.
Collection
This article was originally published on Vogue Runway.
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