Excerpt: ANN DEMEULEMEESTER SPRING 2024 - PARIS FASHION WEEK.

"I had been reviewing Ann Demeulemeester show's for nearly ten years, and stopped reviewing the iconic Avant-garde brand when Sébastien Meunier left the label as creative director after his Fall 2020 showing at Paris Fashion Week.  It was since acquired by the Italian apparel conglomerate New Guards Group, under the watchful eye of businessman Claudio Antonelli, who was solely responsible for the overhyped Off-White label to gain prominence into the Chinese markets.  Meunier for me, was that quintessential romantic designer, who crafted fellow Belgium, Ann Demeulemeester's vision of her Byronic Avant-garde into the 21st Century.  And he did a magnificent job in his respectful homage to Demeulemeester, who retired in 2013.  With precision fits and flowing styles, Meunier accentuated the signature label with its recognisable gothic aesthetic.

Like most material aspects of our culture, we can be haunted by ghosts of the past, metaphor or not.  If we don't clear away the restless spirits, one can become entangled within their suffering.  Let them pass on.  And the label Ann Demeulemeester maybe suffering from the haunts of the past, and in all of its irony of traversing between the timelines of the 1900s and 1970s bohemian looks, after Ann Demeulemeester's retirement ten years ago, the label probably should have been put to rest.  Now in the hands of a corporate entity, Ann Demeulemeester's brand name has churned through, after Meunier's ten year tenure, creative teams who had hastily put together Ann Demeulemeester's Fall 2021 collection without a long term creative director.  Antonelli then hired once Rick Owens model and young fashion designer Ludovic de Saint Sernin, who lasted for only one collection, debuting for Ann Demeulemeester's Fall 2023 collection, that by its standard, was actually a worthwhile debut for De Saint Sernin, yet he exited the brand after just six months.  Testament, to when a brand name tries to reinvent itself, without folding, on disturbed foundations, and begins to have creative directors leave in short durations, that label itself could be holding a curse.  Unless it is ritually cleared..."  

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Full review: chiasmusmagazine.blogspot.com/2023/11/ann-demeulemeester-spring-2024-paris.html
(A.Glass 2023)

Fall 2024 review soon.