Ann Demeulemeester

Queen Ann is the last romantic left in fashion. In the 21st Century, she is the one designer who can speak of poetry in her work unselfconsciously. Perhaps this collection was Demeulemeester sensing that our world is becoming increasingly prosaic. Backstage after the show, Demeulemeester said, “I started this collection by imagining a duke. Left in his castle, cut off from the world, what would he wear?” The answer — long black coats, high-waist riding pants, and leather rope belts. The tall young men Demeulemeester sent down the runway were every bit uninvolved, lost in their own thoughts, lost in their own clothes, lost in their own world. These days, Demeulemeester likes to puncture her usual black and white palette with a choice of color. For this show her color of choice was olive-gray, which translated well into the capes and asymmetric, voluminous jackets.