Ann Demeulemeester

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Ann Demeulemeester (born December 29, 1959 in Waregem ) is a Belgian fashion designer . She belongs to the designer group Antwerp Six and, along with Martin Margiela, is the main representative of deconstructive fashion of the late eighties and early nineties.

Life

Ann Demeulemeester studied fashion design at the Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts . After graduating in 1981, she worked for a Belgian fashion company for a few years. Together with her husband and childhood friend, the photographer Patrick Robyn (* 1957), she founded her own production company in 1985, the year of their wedding . In the same year she bought with him a house designed by Le Corbusier and built in 1926 called Maison Guiette (named after the Belgian painter and client René Guiette ) in Antwerp , in which she also set up her studio. At the end of the 2000s, Demeulemeester and her family moved to the countryside in Belgium. The couple has a son.

style

Ann Demeulemeester, along with Marina Yee, Dries Van Noten , Dirk Bikkembergs , Walter Van Beirendonck and Dirk Van Saene, with whom she studied together, is part of the Antwerp Six , a generation of fashion designers who shook the foundations of European fashion and who shook its reputation of the Belgians as conceptualists . With their work, they explored topics such as metamorphoses, identity, androgyny and sexuality. The style of the Antwerp Six was influenced by Japanese designers, especially Yohji Yamamoto . Barbara Vinken described it as “fashion after fashion”, beyond the demand for eternal youth and beauty. The group had their first joint fashion show in 1986 in London.

Ever since Ann Demeulemeester saw the black and white photography on Patti Smith's album cover Horses at the age of 16 , on which Smith wore a white shirt with black suspenders and a black jacket thrown over his shoulder, black has been her favorite color. Black dominates her collections, although colored accents have been added since the early 2000s, and she repeatedly quoted the white shirt in various combinations and cuts. A white shirt, a suit vest, black trousers or a long skirt, plus flat, coarse lace-up boots - that is the Demeulemeester uniform that wants to give women the feeling of feeling daring and protected at the same time. Patti Smith, who wears Demeulemeester's clothes to her performances, became her muse and friend.

Ann Demeulemeester made her debut with her first women's collection at Fashion Week 1992 in Paris . From 1996 she also designed men's collections. Demeulemeester commented on her fashion in an interview that women are not Barbie dolls, and she appreciates a trace of femininity in men. Demeulemeester gives preference to natural materials such as leather, wool, felt, and hardly uses synthetic materials. Her early work appears austere, with an intentionally unfinished look. Cuts that leave a lot of skin exposed, asymmetries , movement and layers of fabric stacked on top of each other - Demeulemeester deconstructed fashion, which also earned it the label grunge look . Rock , punk and Gothic are other attributes that Demeuleester's style was used to describe. In addition to Smith, she also worked with Jim Dine , both artists labeled garments with their texts, and was inspired by the painter Jackson Pollock and the American photographer Steven Klein for men's collections. Her fashion is considered unadjusted, avant-garde , intellectual , as a “poetic mix of decided rebellion and sensuality”.

In 2010 the American fashion critic Suzy Menkes commented that Ann Demeulemeester could be the designer who “created the dictionary of the modern woman of the 21st century”.

Companies

1994, involved the Belgian entrepreneur Anne Chapelle, which Demeulemeester had met the mother of a friend of her son, as investor financially in the company from Demeulemeester, there took over the management away from the creative and has since acted as CEO . Chapelle's company 32 BVBA , which was founded as a holding company , included Ann Demeulemeester and the Belgian designer Haider Ackermann's fashion company until 2013 . The first Demeulemeester boutique was opened in Antwerp in 1999. There are other stores in Tokyo , Hong Kong and Seoul . Her fashion is sold in 30 countries worldwide.

In November 2013, Ann Demeulemeester announced that she was leaving her company. The Ann Demeulemeester brand with its own retail stores will be continued under the management of her business partner Anne Chapelle. At the fashion shows in February 2014, the Demeulemeester-trained design team consisting of Mirjam van den Akker, Sébastien Meunier and Patrick van Ommeslaghe presented their first collection for the label.

Quote

"Good fashion for me is like rock'n roll - there's always a little rebellion in it."

- Ann Demeulemeester

Awards

  • 1982 Golden Spindle Award, Belgium

Exhibitions (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c James Anderson: Ann Demeulemeester , in: Terry Jones, Susie Rushton: Fashion Now 2 , Taschen Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8365-0336-5 , p. 74
  2. ↑ Adam Geczy, Vicki Karaminas (ed.): Fashion and Art , Bloomsbury Academic, London a. a. 2012, ISBN 978-1-84788-783-2 , p. 69
  3. ^ Ingrid Loschek: When Clothes Become Fashion. Design and Innovation Systems , Bloomsbury Academic, London a. a. 2009, ISBN 978-1-84788-366-7 , p. 105
  4. ↑ a b Brigid Grauman: Deconstructing Demeulemeester. The Belgian Fashion Designer Is Still Doing It Her Way , Wall Street Journal February 14, 2013
  5. ^ Bonnie English: A Cultural History of Fashion in the 20th and 21st Centuries , Bloomsbury Academic, London a. a., second edition 2013, ISBN 978-0-85785-135-2 , p. 155
  6. ^ Haider Ackermann and Ann Demeulemeester Split , Vogue, June 4, 2013
  7. ^ Ann Demeulemeester Leaves Her Company , The New York Times, Nov. 20, 2013
  8. ↑ Ann Demeulemeester leaves her label. After 28 years, the designer is withdrawing from the Ann Demeulemeester brand , Vogue, November 21, 2013
  9. ↑ Fashionshows, Ann Demeulemeester / Fall 2014 RTW, Review by Dan Thawley, Vogue ( Memento from March 20, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  10. ↑ Kevin Davies: Ann Demeulemeester, in: Fashion Now, Taschen Verlag 2003, pdf ( Memento from December 31, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Demeulemeester, Ann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian fashion designer
DATE OF BIRTH December 29, 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Commodity