Ann Demeulemeester Shares the Stories Behind the Looks in Her Retrospective at Pitti Uomo (2024)

Self sufficiency, not to mention restraint, are underrated values in fashion and in the wider world where emotionality and extroverted expression are rampant. An exhibition of Ann Demuelemeester’s work at Pitti Uomo offers an alternative approach that is more interior and quiet, yet powerful. This 24-hour retrospective installation marks the 40th anniversary of the label. Demeulemeester herself chose 40 looks of her design for the show (one for every year), plus six devised by the resurrected brand’s new studio team.

Since retiring in 2013, Demeulemeester has been expressing her creativity through different media, like gardening and pottery, furniture and lighting. “I wanted to create other things, to explore other fields, to start again. You know, I really wanted to be vulnerable again, finding back freedom to create,” she explained on a call. She’s found the transition seamless. “It’s exactly the same. It’s having a voice and choosing a tool to express it or to communicate with it, and most of all, trying to add something that is not there, something we are searching for—beauty, emotion.”

Searching for authenticity, and following his heart, the New Guards Group’s Claudio Antonioli acquired the Ann Demeulemeester label in 2020. “Ann is one of the most important designers in my life, and I think in the fashion system,” he told me last year. This was no hostile takeover; the pair are old friends and Antonioli has invited Demeulemeester to be part of the next iteration of the brand she founded in 1981.

Just what her involvement is has been the subject of much speculation. “I don’t design the clothes anymore, I don’t work with them every day,” Demeulemeester clarified. “[Like] children, you have to let them go and you have to let them be free to find their way. I’m there, I’m not there.” What it comes down to is that Demeulemeester is in the mix, working on selected special projects that catch her fancy, like the redesign of the Antwerp store, a possible perfume launch, and this exhibition. “There is a mutual respect between Antonioli and me…he knows the DNA of the brand very well, and he wanted to invest and to work on the future of this brand. I could feel that he had sincere intentions and I decided to support this new beginning because I was happy that there was a new future for the brand. I knew that I couldn’t do it myself anymore or start again—and I don’t want to draw trousers and jackets again because I have to continue my evolution.”

Demeulemeester is one of two female designers who were members of the Antwerp Six. Graduates of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp, they caused a stir when they brought their designs to London by van in 1986. Their individualistic, sometimes esoteric designs earned them the label deconstructivists. Goth was another description Demeulemeester was assigned. Both are terms she rejects. “I never understood that [designation] so well, because I don’t deconstruct, I construct, but I construct not in a classical way,” the designer said on a call. “The word construct is associated with something rigid, which is not always the case. You can also construct something that is fluid. By deconstructing, maybe they want to say it’s not this rigid, straight thing anymore; it has become more nonchalant or more vivid or more lived in, something like that.”

Pragmatism and poetry meet in Demeulemeester’s designs. “The way I worked, every collection was like a step in a long evolution,” she explained. “I’m sure some collections were better, some were maybe less to my liking, but they were an experiment and each collection had its purpose and its experience. I’m sure that my best collections wouldn’t have existed if the ones before wouldn’t have been there.”

This sense of flow or fluidity extends to Demeulemeester’s approach to gender. To label her designs androgynous is to overlook the designer’s nuanced approach, which predates the current dialogue on the subject. “I was interested in the tension between masculine and feminine, but also the tension between masculine and feminine within one person, that is what makes every person really interesting to me because everybody is unique,” she said. “People tend to classify certain [traits] as being feminine or masculine, but I never did.” In Demuelemeester’s world more than one thing can be true at the same time; there can be strength in softness; wonder can coexist side-by-side rigor.

Demeulemeester shares a sober palette with the Flemish Masters. In their paintings, clothes, and textiles, they spoke outwardly of social status and morality. Black suits, for example, were symbols of seriousness and modesty. Demeulemeester’s clothes are defined by a sort of interiority; you bought and wore them for yourself. “I was always interested in how someone presents themselves to the world and why they’re wearing what they’re wearing, and what can I do to help them to have this self confidence to do certain things,” she said. “Since the beginning, I always made my clothes with so much love… [and] when things are made from the heart, it’s not a business plan. You do your work because you have to do it; you want to communicate something. And if [that] something is real and honest, it’ll last.”

Here, the designer talks us through some of the career-defining looks on exhibition.

Gravity

“Gravity inspired me and I reinforced it. A very good example is [this shirt]. Everybody thinks [that it is a] nice shirt that drops from a shoulder and that’s it nonchalant, but there is much more to it. It’s not just the big shirt that is dropping, it is a fitted shirt combined with a very big one. The little strap around her neck is holding it so it can’t fall completely down, but it makes such a beautiful movement. I also like the idea that people don’t realize [the workmanship], you just understand the freedom of this girl.”

Feathers

“For me a feather is the ultimate expression of freedom, and also it’s something really humble [that] comes from nature. Also when I met my husband [Patrick Robyn] for the first time [he was wearing] a black jacket and a pigeon feather in his pocket, and that was a magic moment. I guess it has something to do with [my use of feathers]. This photo is of Kirsten [Owen], who is wearing a feather bustier and we had tied a cord around her. It was a real choice; I wouldn’t have wanted some chic thing there. I really wanted to go to the essence and to the very beginning of things. And a beautiful anecdote of this photo is that Kirsten confessed to me backstage in my ear, ‘I can’t close the trousers, I’m pregnant.’ And I said, ‘How beautiful is that? Let’s show it.’ But nobody knew… I’m always moved when I see that photo, because [of that].”

Bias Cutting

“I was very interested in cut and in patterns and I understood that with a bias cut you could do things that you never can do with the straight yarn. It’s the most natural stretch. If you put your fibers in diagonal, it means that the fiber will stretch and adjust to your body. That is something that Madeleine Vionnet told us, and I thought, ‘Okay, that seems so interesting.’ Everything that you touch as a designer, you try to make it your own and you.”

The Six Hole Dress

“For every collection I tried to invent something, or at least have the impression that I invented something. [Here] I thought, ‘Okay, let’s start all over again and let’s try to make a dress like a little kid who doesn’t know anything about fashion would make a dress.’ So I started to roll the fabric around the body and I just cut a hole where I wanted my arm. I was draping and I ended up with something really simple: A square piece of fabric with six holes in it. We call it the six hole dress. Here you see it knitted in wool, but you could do all different kinds of fabric. Anyway, it’s part of an evolution.”

Chain Mail

“These are the first outfits I made for men. I made this top by knitting chain that my husband had bought a big ball of. It’s not a jewel and it’s not a sweater, it’s something in between, and it was nice to combine that with like a perfectly beautiful cut suit.”

Grown Up Childs’ Play

“My inspiration was imagining a child wearing his grandfather’s clothes, but doing this in a very beautiful silhouette. You can see that her hat is too big because it is a child wearing the hat of an older person. She has a very chic Spencer, but it’s inside a trouser that comes really, really high; this is one piece from under her arm down. Imagine a child in a trouser, and you pull the trouser until it is over your breast, something like that, but of course, this is terrible. I wanted to make that beautiful because I liked the idea and I wanted this magic, so I worked on this trouser until I had the perfect fit. I remember standing in front of the mirror with this trouser, trying to find my way with it; how could I feel beautiful in it? In the end, that is always the story–you want to give something beautiful and feel beautiful in what you’re wearing, have the confidence to step outside and say, ‘Okay, this is it.’ There is not one piece that was in my collection that I didn’t try because you cannot always know what is wrong or what is good, so I put on the garment and I feel what is wrong and I adjust it and I change it until I feel completely happy. And this is the first time I made this kind of boot, which looked a little bit combat, but more elegant. I rethought the whole shape.”

Armor

“The skirt Delfine is wearing is in fact strips of fabric and on each strip there are a lot of metal rings that are sewn ring by ring. It’s a bit like modern armor that I reinvented. There are thousands of rings on that piece [and] it’s all sewn by hand. It’s hours and hours and hours of work. I like these two together because they came from the same collection [and] have something with beauty and armor. I made this boot in 2004, and it’s still the favorite that lives on. I love horses, they are part of my childhoo,d and I think making like the perfect boot with that inspiration was also important to me.”

Julia Margaret Cameron

“I was thinking in this collection of the children of Julia Margaret Cameron [a 19th-century British photographer].For the jacket I was imagining what fabric would have been beautiful then, so I made this velvet, developing it to look like it was [old]. In his pocket there is a photo that I printed on silk, that is actually a portrait of the children of Julia Margaret Cameron. They gave me permission to print this photo. It’s like a hidden treasure in his pocket, these two angels kissing each other.”

Suspension

“This look on Diana is hanging right from the halter. There is just one tiny, fine [string], which is not a ribbon, but is the continuation of the fabric. I was intrigued by this middle line of the body and how it’s like a drawing. Then I made the jacket around it and [there was] a little bit of metal woven into the fabric, so that I could really almost sculpt it.”

Orlando

“This was a story I made of shadows and [paper silhouettes]. I made figures with scissors. They’re doing all kinds of things and it is just like a fairytale on a white shirt. I was working also on the volume of the skirt. I was a little bit in the mood of the beautiful story of Orlando written by Virginia Woolf.”

Heaven

“Heaven…I guess it’s like a dream that everybody has. When I made this show I used Bob Dylan’s song, “Knocking on Heaven’s Door.” The whole show was [based] only on that sentence. That was the main inspiration. I think I did like five different versions of that song, so the word ‘heaven’ was so much in our minds that we ended up putting it on a T-shirt.”

Protection

“You can call it a corset, but it’s not, it’s a big belt I made. In the front is kind of rigid leather, I cut the sides into strips. What I wanted to do with this was exactly the opposite of a corset, because a corset is making a classic feminine body...and restricting a body or pushing it into a certain shape. That’s what it was in history, but what I wanted to do, was in fact exactly the opposite. I wanted to make a shield or a kind of armor that would protect the fragility of a feminine body inside. I wanted it more masculine, more straight, with a stronger shape, and [for it to be] protection also. I worked with my friend, PJ Harvey, she wore something from this collection. I put a very fragile cotton dress [on her] and then we put the belt on it and then she felt really strong and she said, ‘I really feel like I can be on the stage with this and confront all these people , all this emotion, because I really feel strong with this. I feel protected, I feel beautiful.’ ”

Zippers

“I think the zipper, if you open it, is kind of a nice thing. It is something like a jewel, but it has also something a bit dangerous, which was intriguing to me. On her head she has a band in leather and the zippers came over that as a kind of cage; so if you want, she’s a little bit like a tiny bird in a cage. The jacket is asymmetrical with just one zip by the side. And then she has these fine leather belts that are coming together with zips, so you could do like two pieces or three, or put several of them, which makes a display of metal lines in the silhouette.”

Robert Mapplethorpe

“This was a little tribute for our friend Robert. My husband Patrick made a portrait of Robert Mapplethorpe in the ’80s with his hair like this. This photo is on our wall, looking at it I thought, it’s time to do this once. We made the hairdo like Robert’s and, I said, okay, ‘If Robert would live now, what kind of jacket would he like?’ and I just tried to create something that would be elegant and strong, like an evolution of his personality. That’s why I combined it with a fragile white shirt and a beautiful poetic, striped trouser. I made whole collections with that, imagining what [someone like the poet] Rimbeau would like to wear if he would live today, and that would bring all my imagination and my creativity forward.”

Laces

“This whole story started because I like laces. I was so in love with the laces from my boots that I decided to make an outfit like a boot. I like the way you can shape things or tie them or undo them. All that [allowed] me do this and make a kind of sculpture of laces and boots and zips. Even the gloves had laces in them. The belt is almost becoming a skirt; you have all these pieces attached to each other with zips, so you could wear one, or you could wear two or three or four; you can construct this outfit a bit like you want. You can also wear it much calmer than it is presented here, but I liked the, the sculptural effect of it.”

Sculpture

“I love hats, I think they really define a silhouette. I made a silver pin that I stuck through the hat with the feather on its other side. In fact it’s a silver jewel with an exaggerated shape because it's so long. The bustier she’s wearing is made of what I call sculpted leather. There is a bustier and there is a belt and together they form almost the shield of an insect, and they move with each other. It’s really practical, I sometimes wear this piece myself.”

Dada

“You have certain people who do certain things that stay with you forever, and sometimes they come out in an uncontrolled way. In this collection I was thinking about Marcel Duchamp, who is one of my favorite artists. On the soundtrack, Marcel Duchamp is [answering a journalist who asked him], ‘Do you think that Dada is more than a criticism of art? And he said, ‘It is much more, it is the nonconformist spirit that has always existed since man is man.’ I thought that was so inspiring, so I decided to make a Dada collection. We have written ‘Dada’ on the T-shirt, but if you look carefully, there is written ‘Papa’ with a ‘P,’ which my husband wanted. In his pocket is a thermometer, in the way somebody like Man Ray would use that too and say, ‘Listen, this is art.’ And he’s right. So I put the thermometer in his pocket. And if you look carefully to the collar, there is a half scissor sewn on it.”

I remember that we had to go to Shanghai for the opening of a shop, and on the flea market we found a red record and, and it looked so amazing. My husband said, ‘Let’s buy the record.’ I said, ‘Yeah, but what will be on it?” And my husband said, ‘That’s the beauty of it, and since you are making this Dada collection, why don’t we play this record at the show? We don’t care what is on it. That is a real act of Dada. So at the beginning of the show [we played] the voice of Marcel, and then the music of this record we brought from China. We had not a clue what was on it; it was the most beautiful music one can imagine and it made magic.”

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.