MEET ME IN THE RUNAWAY -  24 HOURS INTO ANN DEMEULEMEESTER 

Words by Nicolò Michielin
Photography by Francis Delacroix

 

I was heading home on metro line 7, dawn had just passed, but the sky I was seeing through the window above the Seine was still orange. My God, how beautiful that sky was, it inevitably made me think of the girl I liked. It was as if the world had forgotten all the bullshit of the day before and had gifted everyone the purity of something like a new beginning. A moment of forgiveness for all our sins, a moment to write “good morning” to your love and to think about where to spend Sunday afternoon with her.

When the train went back underground, I opened Instagram and saw a post with a photo of The Hellp next to Sheet Noise that read: “Ann Demeulemeester front row was for indie kids.” In the comments, everyone was talking about how the Belgian brand—now an Italian pride under the Antonioli group—was contributing to a revival of Indie Sleaze. It was a term I had been hearing more and more often. I had a general idea of what it was, but I couldn’t quite define it, so I looked it up on Wikipedia, which described it as “an optimistic response to the Great Recession and led to a rise in amateur flash photography and hedonistic partying and drug use.”

Definitions aside, it was clear that whatever that indie-rock-and-roll attitude that was in vogue about fifteen years ago had been, it had been attracting the renewed attention of brands, media, and everything else orbiting the fashion business for some time now.

 

 

There’s no doubt that the collection designed by young Italian designer Stefano Gallici has a strong rock and roll influence: the pieces on the runway could have been seen on Hendrix, or photographed on the streets of Los Angeles worn by Steven Tyler.

”Is anybody listening? While vultures tear it all apart. The bones are bleached and glistening.”

Stripped of its voice, the instrumental version of City of the Angels by The Cult carries the raw pulse of something that’s over but still lingers in the air. It’s the moment when the lights come on, and you’re left in the silence that follows—unsettling, yet honest.

This tension defines the collection—not as a gimmick, but as a raw distillation of what Ann Demeulemeester has always been: a poetry of contrasts, where fragility is armored, and darkness is illuminated. Gallici’s latest vision for Ann Demeulemeester captured this duality perfectly. The show was a procession of darkly romantic specters and saints, wrapped in sheer shearlings, whispering silks, and distressed knits—pieces that looked as if they had survived both a baptism and a funeral, resisting the chaos, yet caught in its aftermath. The voiceless track speaks precisely to that moment: the party’s over, but you’re still there, feeling the weight of it all.
But what I believe to be Ann Demeulemeester’s greatest achievement goes beyond the runway and the concept of a fashion brand, shaping an imaginary world that reifies into a true community. From the models walking the show to the guests in attendance, everyone seemed to embody the spirit of the brand—not only aesthetically but, above all, in what we might call attitude or lifestyle. Both in front of and behind the scenes.

 

And so, AD has engaged with the scene, photographers, artists, muses, poets, guitarists, designers, creating a cultural exchange, borrowing its codes to reinterpret them and turning the spotlight onto it. Under Gallici’s direction, the brand brought to the runway not just models, but also a significant percentage of it-girls and musicians, established names as well as figures still unknown to the big public—evidence of careful research and a keen eye for the underground voices that brands usually only notice once they’ve already made it onto the covers of established magazines.

The same could be said for the aftershow, organized in collaboration with STXDYOZ, and with the iconic Venetian brand Select acting as patron. Behind the DJ booth, The Hellp, Bar Italia, Nausea Twins, Pol, and Eva Yelmani took turns, as the entire Paris underground scene gathered while songs from Placebo, The Libertines, The Subways, and The Teenagers played in the background.
And maybe, for a moment, someone really thought they were back in 2005.

The tally of broken glasses we had to reimburse the venue for—more than a hundred—gives an idea of the atmosphere: people smoked wherever they pleased, indifferent, while the kisses of one-night loves and lifelong romances intertwined on the dance floor. Many hid their eyes behind sunglasses —some of them just for style, DJs climbed onto the console, and The Cobra Snake roamed the venue, snapping shots of young, wasted superstars in leather jackets and ripped jeans.