PARIS and MILAN — The scene at the Ann Demeulemeester show on Saturday evening, staged at the gothic Réfectoire des Cordeliers — a venue die-hard Demeulemeester acolytes have long associated with Ann herself — was appropriately nocturnal. Out of the pitch black, indie act Beguiling Junior kicked off the outing with a short performance, followed by a parade of models that included Billy Idol, as the grungy community that creative director Stefano Gallici has assembled (Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin among them) looked on.
It all drove home how Gallici’s tribe differs from Demeulemeester’s: wilder and perhaps a little oblivious to the codes Ann set back in the day. And yet the ways in which Gallici has made the house his own are compelling, shifting away from stompy moodiness and dangling straps towards something more romantic, raw and youthful — without being disruptive.
The show — titled “Dear Night Thoughts” after the diary Gallici used to pen as a rebel teenager in northeastern Italy — came with hints of varsity and school uniforms mixed with officer’s jackets, tattered dresses and lace underskirts, rusted leathers and cut-off tailoring. There was an avalanche of ruffles and plenty of black, artfully cut with denim, rusty brown and deep burgundy. “Worlds in collision” is how Gallici described the collection and it was the designer’s most convincing to date: his Demeulemeester vision more fully formed than ever.
That vision is driving commercial results. In 2025, revenues hit €15 million, up 40 percent on the year before, and owner Claudio Antonioli aims to surpass €30 million in 2027, betting on the introduction of precollections and new stores like the one opened on Milan’s Via Montenapoleone last month, the brand’s first outside Antwerp, to keep up the momentum. “Next should be New York and Tokyo: we are on the lookout,” said Antonioli.
The co-founder of New Guards Group and owner of the Antonioli boutique in Milan acquired Belgian designer Ann Demeulemeester’s namesake label in 2020 from Anne Chapelle’s BVBA 32 after the brand’s Arthur Rimbaud and Patti Smith-inflected, punk-poet sensibility had fallen out of step with the zeitgeist. The path to re-energising the label has been full of twists and turns: at first, Antonioli entrusted the label’s creative direction to a team, with stylist Olivier Rizzo editing the collection; then came Ludovic de Saint-Sernin, whose once promising reboot lasted only a single season before Gallici was plucked from within the brand’s men’s team and promoted to creative director.
The latest reboot appears to have the blessing of the label’s founder. “Ann Demeulemester in person called us to compliment on the campaign we recently launched,” Antonioli enthused about a series of Nikolai Von Bismarck-lensed advertising images released in February. And that blessing seemed to complete what has been a complicated passing of the baton.
Today Ann Demeulemester is something else and speaks to a new, indie-boho clientele. Gallici has always been clear that he has no intention of leaning too heavily on the archive, an approach that was at first criticized by old guard Demeulemester fans. But if the label’s recent sales momentum is anything to go by, it’s safe to say he’s on the right track.
