Ann Demeulemeester's Starry Night
By Karl Treacy
(Photos by Gruber-FWD)
PARIS, Mar 13, 2003/ FWD/ --- With black felt hats tipped rakishly and a perennial palette of black, black, black, Belgian designer Ann Demeulemeester played the bleakly androgynous game she is famous for – in the suitably dark, industrial and cold show space of the Carreau du Temple.
Nipple-high trousers came folded down to where they were belted on the hips and leather skirts shared a similar structure with belt loops down low on a superimposed waistband. A novel idea, but surely one that French designer Anne-Valerie Hash has made her own.
Demeulemeester lightened up with delicate prints of a crescent moon or stars in the night sky that came speckled across a washed silk T-shirt or stood proud on a sweater dress. But she bit the bullet and jumped back on her bike for leather pants that had criss-cross lacing up the front and, like everything else, came with tough boots hanging open.
That hard edge was cool when she layered it with double-breasted Spencer jackets in leather or in battered velvet. Bad girls like their thick tights ruched and crumpled but even this didn’t distract from the surprising slickness of a look like a high miniskirt hooked over one shoulder by a leather button-stand strap over a sheer sweater.
Like a lot of other people Demeulemeester is majoring in straps for fall; hers cinched the back of long waistcoats worn as jackets or pulled back the front of long coats.
But even with Stella Tennant looking ethereal in printed georgette and a mini it all seemed like a case of “been there, done that.” By sticking to the same color scheme and moody viewpoint, Demeulemeester seems to have lost a lot of the experimentation and exploration that made previous collections so exciting and even at times poetic.
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