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By Alexander Patino
POSTED March 4, 2011
Ann Demeulemeester Exorcises Feminine
Beauty Out of Our Darkest Poetry
Beauty Out of Our Darkest Poetry
The Gnostic poetry that beautifully underscored Ann Demeulemeester's Fall menswear collection was ballasted in the designer's latest womenswear outing with a dramatic dose of British
Romanticism. Well, those two are more than just a bit mutually exclusive, but it shows the expansive reach that Demeulemeester has for harnessing the ideas of beauty that exist in a plane
of dark matter - an idea of beauty that precedes Christianity, from time immemorial to as recent as the writings of John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley. The British Romantic vein was
tapped with a deeply Gnostic sensibility, and so, if William Blake was deigned this fall's quintessential Demeulemeester man, then Mary Shelley surely must be her woman.
The banding and heavy corseting looked like sutures on swollen skin - the skin in this case being black puckered leather. But this wasn't some steam-punk Bride of Frankenstein foray.
This was certainly a romantic creature all her own, the Promethean light only barely shining through on a coat that covered the model's body from head-to-toe, with a subtle, but dazzling
tinge of red. The effect was dreamy and inspired, making it almost appear like there was an incandescent heartbeat underneath all that fur. These head-to-toe fur ensembles were the kind
of thing you'd find before a Diane Arbus lens - these were strange beings that mesmerized. There was certainly a play on the amalgamation of human and creature. Bird feathers recalled
harpies, the winged Pegasus in the sways of horse hair and Pan him or herself in the yards and yards of fur. Demeulemeester's was a wicked, mystical and mythical brew indeed.
Romanticism. Well, those two are more than just a bit mutually exclusive, but it shows the expansive reach that Demeulemeester has for harnessing the ideas of beauty that exist in a plane
of dark matter - an idea of beauty that precedes Christianity, from time immemorial to as recent as the writings of John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley. The British Romantic vein was
tapped with a deeply Gnostic sensibility, and so, if William Blake was deigned this fall's quintessential Demeulemeester man, then Mary Shelley surely must be her woman.
The banding and heavy corseting looked like sutures on swollen skin - the skin in this case being black puckered leather. But this wasn't some steam-punk Bride of Frankenstein foray.
This was certainly a romantic creature all her own, the Promethean light only barely shining through on a coat that covered the model's body from head-to-toe, with a subtle, but dazzling
tinge of red. The effect was dreamy and inspired, making it almost appear like there was an incandescent heartbeat underneath all that fur. These head-to-toe fur ensembles were the kind
of thing you'd find before a Diane Arbus lens - these were strange beings that mesmerized. There was certainly a play on the amalgamation of human and creature. Bird feathers recalled
harpies, the winged Pegasus in the sways of horse hair and Pan him or herself in the yards and yards of fur. Demeulemeester's was a wicked, mystical and mythical brew indeed.
