Ann Demeulemeester
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,Graphic Design
Ann Demeulemeester Details
Review “Even if you don’t have many of the designer’s pieces hanging in your closet, you can celebrate her work with a new permanent fixture on you coffee table.” –Fashionista.com“The book is, natch, black, with a lot of white space on each page perfectly framing photographs that chronicle Ms. Demeulemeester’s 30 years in fashion. It has been her main project since she stepped down from her house…While it is quite thick, however, it is regular book length and width — it’s not one of those glossy megaliths that require their own coffee table — which makes it something of an elegant surprise. It’s pretty much her aesthetic in magnum opus form.” –The New York Times“The music industry has the White Album. And now fashion has an iconic black book, thanks to a beautiful new volume from Rizzoli…The new tome tells her story and represents the perfect incarnation of her style. It looks and feels almost sacred, with pages so thin the images can be seen on both sides of each sheet; it's a truly delicate beauty. For this reason, every single page is printed only on one side, creating a uniquely singular reading experience. The size and weight of the book gently contrasts with the fragility and smoothness of the paper, while the almost total white of the inside is in opposition with the blackness of the sides and the linen cover.” –Cool Hunting“Must-Read! Ann Demeulemeester’s New Self-Titled Tome. Ann Demeulemeester’s first book isn’t your average coffee table publication. It’s not the sort of bold-faced title that will gather dust and indented mug rings…. It’s more of an elegant keepsake, a rare treasure waiting to be explored by curious eyes and nimble fingers. Continue to thumb through the glossy pages and you’re presented with 1,000 carefully curated images spanning from 1982 to 2014 — all detailing a darkly romantic vision inspired by muses from Beat poet Allen Ginsberg to photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. With every page, it becomes clear this isn’t a gimmicky, Saran-wrapped present you gift to just anyone. It’s a beautifully crafted retrospective meant for a connoisseur’s private collection.” –The Fashion Spot"Though the wave of sadness felt after Ann Demeulemeester's departure from her eponymous label endures, the fashion set should find some consolation come fall. Demeulemeester has announced that she's penned a hardcover tome from Rizzoli....which is due out in October. The book promised to be "the first and highly personal perspective into the work and processes of Ann Demeulemeester," will boast more than one thousand images. Though springs' only just arrived, well be counting down the days until autumn." -Style.com"If anyone is still pained by Ann Demeulemeester's departure from her eponymous label last year, this epic career retrospective penned by the designer is the cure. The pages detail the Antwerp Six designer's career from her graduation show in 1981 to the dark, frequently subversive collections she became famous for in the 1990s. Although known for a signature edge to her aesthetic, the photographs shine a light on a highly poetic quality that exists in the designer's best work.” –San Francisco Chronicle“The $100 tome will contain more than 1,000 photographs that offers an intimate look at the mysterious designer and her lauded career.” –Daily Front Row "Ann Demeulemeester, who dispatched a hand-written letter last November to reveal her exit from fashion, is now working on a book. The hardcover Rizzoli tome, written by the Belgian designer and with an introduction by musician Patti Smith, is due out in mid-October, and billed by the publisher as “the first and highly personal perspective into the work and processes of Ann Demeulemeester, one of the most influential and inspiring fashion designers of our time." -WWD "The book is already boasting buzz for its features. The project's introduction will reportedly be written by musician Patti Smith, who was a longtime muse and friend of the designer. For $100 price tag, you'll be able to feast your eyes on more than 1,000 photographs from the designer's long and eventful career in fashion." -FashionTimes.com“A long-awaited and very weighty monograph on Ann Demeulemeester…The cloth-bound book is, obviously, black and comes in a matching slipcase…It’s not a regular, large-format coffee table affair, but its thickness is a physical reminder of how rich Demeulemeester’s career in fashion has been. As a matter of fact, if not for the thin paper stock, the 2000-page tome might prove unwieldy. The first part is a treasure trove of early photography, virtually impossible to come by in the pre-Internet era. From these you can glean how early some signature elements of Demeulemeester’s aesthetic appeared…There are no breaks of any kind to separate one collection from the next— a reminder that Demeulemeester sees her work as one continuous, undivided series of chapters.” –Hint Magazine“The book is an exclamation point in the last sentence of Demeulemeester’s career, which is a long novel in itself…Demeulemeester spoke of it as if it was the perfect closure to her body of work in fashion. The book was a family affair. It’s not a regular, large-format coffee table affair, but its thickness is the physical reminder of how rich Demeulemeester’s career in fashion had been.” –StyleZeitgeist Read more About the Author Ann Demeulemeester was born in Waregem, Belgium, in 1959 and graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. She and her husband Patrick Robyn established her label in 1985. Patti Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet, and visual artist. Read more
Reviews
It’s difficult to express how I feel about this book: on one hand it is a beautiful object, on the other hand it could have been so much more.As an object: It is literally an Ann Demeulemeester Bible with its black linen covering, its black edging to each (almost bible weight) vellum-like page, its looooong black lace woven throughout to act as a bookmark, and of course the black linen covered box that acts to protect it all… It’s beautiful. What’s disappointing is that, excluding the beautiful forward by Patti Smith and the brief final paragraph by Ann, the rest of the book offers no insight or commentary into the world of Ann or what happens behind the scenes. The book’s contents simply serve as a record of her runway shows, presented chronologically and without separation or commentary, and a few very early lookbook style photographs that are hard to find elsewhere. Each photo is roughly 3.5”x 5” with a substantial white border and a blank page opposite. It can be emotive to look through each page one by one, but upon a quick glance as a whole; it’s a little underwhelming (esp. when it’s the only book about her and that you can easily find much larger/clearer photos of the more recent collections online...) If you Love Ann you’ll want this object on your bookshelf and this record of her work for your memories, but if you don’t already know her/the brand, the contents of this book will not likely convert you in the same way that many of the other fashion books out there might.
