On Saturday night, the Ann Demeulemeester show took place in a hulled-out modern building flanking the Montparnasse train station. One day it will become offices and a school. But for now it offers up a large, rough-hewn space with a very long runway, lined on this occasion with a trail of white lilies. It was pretty, if a tad funereal. On every seat was an envelope with a moody “Wall of Reference” printed in black and white. It name-checked Hunter S. Thompson, medieval poet François Villon, Dennis Hopper, Jack Kerouac, and Stevie Nicks, among others. Nicks’s handwritten lyrics for “Rhiannon” appeared on the last page. There was a musical introduction by way of a live performance on electric guitar. That was pretty long too.
What was clear is that creative director Stefano Gallici, now three seasons into his role, is feeling more at home. During a preview, the designer explained that he came to fashion through music, namely punk, indie, and garage. At the time, he played in a band (My Bloody Valentine and Dinosaur Jr. were favorites), and his mother was a major Fleetwood Mac fan. While he chose to dive back into his teenage obsessions, this collection wasn’t just about his own experience, he said. The brand—part mindscape, part autobiography—has attracted a younger community that’s highly engaged and constantly evolving.
“It was unexpected, even to me, but this young tribe feels seen [by us],” he said. “We touch the kids who don’t recognize themselves in the contemporary music field, and they want to express what they stand for in fashion and art. What I want to bring them is not just a series of shows and collections, but also a musical and cultural landscape.”
Gallici doesn’t particularly relish the term muse, but it’s fair to say that Nicks, notably in her Bella Donna period, struck the dominant chord for spring. Models and musicians—Shane Hawkins among them—emerged in moody looks leavened by powder pink, lilac, mauve, and very pretty pieces in chiffon lasered into English eyelet. There was a lashing of New Romanticism, flou floral silks, and hammered satins, paired variously with distressed, patched, and embroidered denim, hand-distressed jersey, and pants cut on the bias. Gallici said he was using the rawness of lace on bare skin, feathery knits, deconstructed and inside-out tailoring, and slouch to conjure a feeling of absent-mindedness—or what he called the “endless possibilities of lost and found.”
Whatever that means, Gallici arguably conjured all the hits in a way that should prove commercial. It’s the kind of music the Ann Demeulemeester crowd knows when they hear it. They were out in force on Saturday, all dressed up and ready to follow wherever the night may lead. They took the lilies with them.
