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It might be a heathen thing to say, what with Ann Demeulemeester’s collection for autumn/winter 13 referencing spirituality and all, but there was really something rather magical about it. Maybe it was the way the first exit, a ghostly white floor-length dress with light pleats, glided down the catwalk and silenced the brightly lit Espace Vendôme. Or perhaps it was the almost divine sense of serenity that only Demeulemeester can communicate through garments. “It was very intuitive. I was trying to make something I think is right for today and for tomorrow, and especially what we need in this time. For me, I need poetry, I need beauty, I need a wonderful dream, and I also need strength to confront what we are living in. It was almost spirituality,” Ann said backstage, echoing the premise of her menswear collection last month. (“Men’s was part one. This was part two,” she noted.) Spirituality is a theme, which serves Demeulemeester well. To the naked eye, the collection could seem like a sinister goth parade of melancholy, but it was anything but a cliché. Better than most artists, Demeulemeester understands that the purest light is contrasted by darkness, and it was precisely this philosophy that made Thursday’s collection one of her most life-affirming in recent seasons. Throughout the show, white shifted into black and back into white again until the two poles represented a unified sense of calm, which was only heightened by the dreamy Nick Cave tracks Demeulemeester had selected from his new album. “It’s fantastic how soul mates can be on the same track without knowing,” Ann said. “It’s strange. I didn’t know that Nick was making a record like that. He sent it to me and I thought, ‘This will be easy. It’s exactly what I need.’ Even the words. Everything. It was meant to be.”
Text: Anders Christian Madsen
Photography: Mitchell Sams
