Ann Demeulemeester
How do you confuse a fashion crowd? Put the odd numbered seats on one side of the venue, and the even on the other. The Belgian designer makes no apologies about her confounding approach to fashion—and nor should she. Her man is a louche aesthete who lounges around in a fantastic deconstructed suit.
Featuring a drug-hazed, impossibly slow version of David Lynch’s I Know as the soundtrack, her models emerged one by one in beautifully elegant ensembles. It was like watching a group of young Edwardian poets leave an opium den. Delicate floral prints appeared, often tone on tone, while fabrics ranging from super-soft cottons to crushed velvets to metallic jacquards were layered in complex ways.
Never one to follow a trend, Demeulemeester did, however, display a rare moment of groupthink, sending down a heavy shock of orange, a color seen on many a Paris runway this week. But ever the contrarian, she then showed an equally heavy dose of orange’s opposite on the color wheel, purple.