Oh, Ann. Where are you these days? Are you well? Are you taking long walks on the autumn beach by your summer house, watching the birds, the trees; taking in the serenity? The great D-Meister may have left us but a year on, her legacy is very much alive thanks to Sebastian Meunier, who had placed little black and white feathers on everyone’s chairs at Thursday’s show as an homage to the house’s founder, who could change an entire outfit with the clever touch of a single feather. Oh, Ann, we miss you. That’s why Meunier’s undertaking at the house of Demeulemeester isn’t an easy one: Ann was quite the poet in her work, and it’s something so personal it could never be imitated.
No doubt recognising this, Meunier chose to go the rootsy route instead, putting on a folksy Duke Harwood (The Horror) and Neil Young (Sign of Love) soundtrack that Ann probably appreciated, watching via live stream from her Le Corbusier palace in Antwerp. (The last part is purely fictional. Ann would never live stream anything.) Parts of the collection were rootsy as well – rootsy in terms of Ann-dom – as it played with layers of transparency, those mannish goth lord cuts, and lots of length. But unlike his men’s show this summer, which leaned more towards the ceremonious melancholy of Demeulmeester’s work, Meunier brought a certain amount of sportswear into the picture, which made for a curious new element in the dreamy universe of Ann.
Credits
Text Anders Christian Madsen
Photography Mitchell Sams