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Ann Demeulemeester
- Thread starter faust
- Start date
Hello everyone,
This Sunday, on CNN program "Talk Asia", there'll be an interview of Ann Demeulemeester. Sunday GMT 00.30 on CNN
Or you can check it here: http://edition.cnn.com/ASIA/talkasia/
Don't miss :-)
This Sunday, on CNN program "Talk Asia", there'll be an interview of Ann Demeulemeester. Sunday GMT 00.30 on CNN
Or you can check it here: http://edition.cnn.com/ASIA/talkasia/
Don't miss :-)
I saw the latter part of the CNN interview. She was wonderful. She seems to be very genuine.
Here are some points raised during the interview, if I recall accurately:
- She loves working together with her husband; her son is also very creative (but not into fashion)
- She's not into obvious branding
- She doesn't like superficiality, hence, she doesn't design "flashy" clothes. She likes good music and meeting friends, but not in a big, glamorous, superficial event.
- When asked about her fashion do's and don'ts, she replied that she doesn't want to impose something; everybody is free to dress his or her own way (she says she's an anarchist in that sense)
- How she creates or designs something: she asks herself some serious, or profound questions, and in the process of thinking about the answers, she gets the inspiration to design.
I hope I got it right (or close).
Anyhow, I think the transcript will be available soon in the CNN website.
Here are some points raised during the interview, if I recall accurately:
- She loves working together with her husband; her son is also very creative (but not into fashion)
- She's not into obvious branding
- She doesn't like superficiality, hence, she doesn't design "flashy" clothes. She likes good music and meeting friends, but not in a big, glamorous, superficial event.
- When asked about her fashion do's and don'ts, she replied that she doesn't want to impose something; everybody is free to dress his or her own way (she says she's an anarchist in that sense)
- How she creates or designs something: she asks herself some serious, or profound questions, and in the process of thinking about the answers, she gets the inspiration to design.
I hope I got it right (or close).
Anyhow, I think the transcript will be available soon in the CNN website.
Last edited by a moderator:
I think it's very rare to see her having an interview on TV and I find it's very interesting. This is a conversation on the program:
Ann Demeulemeester
Interview at Talk Asia/CNN
24 September 2006
The first thing that I want to ask you, people say ‘clothes make person.’ do you think that’s true? Do you think person make clothes?
Ann Demeulemeester: I think clothes can help to explain better a person. But one can also fake with his clothes. One can play a role with his clothes. I think the best thing is that there is something honest about the way you dress yourself, if your appearance is right with your inner, then you are really well dressed.
You’re known as the deconstructionist, tell us hat exactly that means
This is kind of a stamp, a label that they put on my back but I don’t agree with that. I don’t deconstruct, I construct. So, I’m starting from zero, I really construct a new silhouette. So it has everything to do with construction, not with deconstruction, deconstruction is breaking down; it’s not what I’m doing. But this is maybe because I sometimes let a soul of garment speak, I sometimes show something from the inside of the garment, something which is not classic, I’m breaking rules, that’s maybe why they give me this little title.
You like fabric and texture, why have you chosen these 2 aspects to base on?
I think fabric and texture are just two tools. It’s material; it’s like paint for painter. For me, it’s my material. And the most important for me is to construct new silhouettes, to do a lot of work on cuts, to bring emotion in a garment; the way a garment is sculpt. It’s a 3 dimensional job, and in fact it’s my job. And I try to make clothes with soul, and people who wear it can feel it by the way it’s cut, the way it hangs on the body, the way it moves. So I think the main thing of my concentration is to cut movement in 3 dimensional forms and to add emotion.
Fashion by its very nature is circle, we see things coming and going. How do you make sure that you keep your work fresh?
I think I’m somebody who really looks forward. I don’t go back in time. I think the job of fashion designer is to look forward, to be sensitive, to feel what we want for tomorrow. So I do believe in the future and I think my work is like a life work. Every collection is like a step into a life work. And every collection could not be there if the collection before wasn’t there. It’s an evolution.
Looking through your pieces here in the shop, there’s a lot of black and a lot of white. Does that describe you as a person?
I don’t know if I’m black and white. I think I’m both. I think black for me represents the most poetic color, but it cannot live without white, which is for me purity. So I need both. For me, it’s essence of my work. And because I think it’s like an architect, I construct garments and for me color is more like decoration, color is something that comes after the pure form. So sometimes I leave it with black and white. I have a feeling that I have enough with that to explain what I want to explain. I want to focus on the shape and the silhouette. But sometimes I feel like using colors too. In every collection there is colors but it’s more about shade, about subtle variation, it’s not screamy colors.
Fashion is all about taking risk. But how do you know what’s going to work? Like when you design a garment out of parachute nylon? How do you know that people will go for it?
I never know. I go with my feeling. I think it’s important. I don’t have fear. I just follow what I feel as a woman, as a designer. And like I said, it’s my job to throw it open, to think again, to come up with new ideas. So I don’t know. No gut, no glory. I just try. I try to give the best of myself, you know. And I can only hope that people will like it.
Any risk that you’ve taken and you’ve regret?
No, no regret. I think that every steps that you take in life has its meaning, has its purpose. So even if I made a fault, I learn from it. So I don’t have regret.
You are often described as a member of Antwerp Six, a very famous group of Belgian fashion designer. What do you think make you different as a group for everything else that it out there at the time?
I think that as young kids, we were really ambitious, we were really believing in our talents. We really wanted to work really hard. And I think that in Belgium, there is no fashion tradition and I think it made us quite free and finding a new voice. And at the same time I think I realized that what I was doing had to be really good, had to have its own voice, otherwise nobody would have looked, nobody was expecting something coming out of Belgium. I don’t know what the secret is. The only thing is that sometimes in history, it happens that people find each other, start certain energy, came out together and I think although we are very different, the impact of this different people at the same time coming out with something new made it exceptional.
When you’re known as being a part of the group as you’re in Antwerp Six, does it make it more difficult to stand out as an individual fashion designer?
We never have intension to form a group. It’s just because six people come out of a country where nobody was expecting anything from, six very different individual and six very difficult names, so it was easier for the press to say the six Belgian than to pronounce Dries Van Noten, Ann Demeulemeester, Walter Van Beirendonck, Martin Margiela, it was too difficult.
As far as Asia goes, I supposed we’ve got a fashion hub of Tokyo. Other than that, what asian city do you think will be up and coming?
I’m somebody who creates clothes. I’m not somebody who analyzes market, I’m not functioning like that. I have people who work with me, who are very talented in doing this, so I prefer to concentrate on creation, to give my works to the world. And I think it’s a natural selection. Which city or which people are attracted to my clothes, it comes naturally.
Since your asian operation has done pretty well. Why do you think that they’ve been so successful? What do you think people here are so receipt to your work?
Emotions are universal. They are not linked to certain countries. And I think people who are sensitive; they are attracted to my clothes. They come like that just by themselves. And I think for me it’s a beautiful presence to what I’m doing. Because when I was young, I chose this profession because it looks like, to me, like a modern ways of communication. It looks to me like a profession where I could communicate with a lot of people. It’s like a painter who paints, or a musician who makes songs, or a writer who writes a book. I make clothes to communicate. And the beautiful thing is you send something out to the world and the world comes back to you. And for me, it’s amazing.
How would you define Asian style at the moment?
I believe in individuality, I don’t believe in one mass thing for everybody. So I appreciate personality. But what I can feel when I am here is that there’s a lot of energy, there’s a belief in the future, which is really beautiful I think. And I think Asian women are amazing. You can feel strength, a will to a lot of things, they have a beautiful skin, and you can see spirituality in their eyes, which makes them very attractive to me.
How do you see the future of the fashion trade in Asia taking shape?
I think that people are discovering different fashion now. I think that the first thing that gets here were maybe like the main conventional big houses. But I think that Asian women are now also discovering that there’s something more than a label, that you can have clothing with a soul, that you can have emotion, that is not only about label. And I think that they are discovering this. What I try to do is that I really want to express a respect for people who are wearing my clothes, and that’s why I never put like big label or brand name. If I meet somebody, I want to meet a woman or a man, I don’t want to meet a label, so I think this is important for them to understand that you don’t need to show off with labels to be well dressed I think. But it’s ok, it’s an evolution.
Was fashion always a dream for you or what you always wanted to do?
No. I don’t know, it just came out by a certain moment in my life. What I always like to do was to create; I think that’s the most important thing. And I know since I was a child that I wanted to create, to invent. But it could be all kinds of things. What I liked the most was to draw, to make drawing, to make portraits of people. And if you make a portrait, automatically you are also drawing clothing. And that I started to be interested who was wearing what and why. So at a certain point I thought ok, maybe that could be my profession, this personality study. But that’s where the idea came from, so I was 15 or 16 when I got this idea.
Your husband, Patrick Robyn, he was your childhood sweetheart. And you did collaborate together, which they say it’s dangerous thing, never work with your husband or wife. How does it work for you?
I just love it. It’s a very natural thing for me. I do believe that you meet certain people in life because you have to meet them. And my husband I is one of these people. When I saw him the first time I just knew that this is my soul mate. And I think the fact that we grew up together, that we become adult together made us like one voice, made us stronger together. And my husband is like an artist, he is very creative person, who is very inspiring to me and we live together, we work together, it’s so natural. I can’t imagine that it cold be different.
You have a son, Viktor. He is 20 years old. Has he shown any attitude for the artistic way of life?
Yes, absolutely. I think that he’s our child, so I think it’s a bit in a gene. He is very creative, he is a person who has open mind, who likes to experiment all these elements, he’s got a bit form his parent, I think. But he’s not somebody who is interested in fashion. I think he has to find his own voice, and that’s what he is doing now, he’s in art school in Belgium. He’s experimenting, working, which is good.
Where do you get most of your inspiration from when you try to come up with your design?
I don’t know where it comes from; it just comes. But if I want to create inspiration, I ask question to myself, like very difficult question. And by thinking to find an answer, the moment that I find the answer, I have the inspiration, that’s the way I try to create inspiration for myself. It’s thinking, it comes from inside.
In a trade where products are very down to personal taste, how important is it to listen to people who might not like what you do?
I think it’s always very interesting to listen to people, what they like, what they don’t like, were they interested in or not? I always learn about human nature if I listen to that. But at the same time, I’m somebody who follow my own voice, and I’m convinced that people who think like me, who appreciate what I’m doing, they’ll find my products.
Many fashion designers love the glamorous party life style. You seem to shy away from that. What’s so good about quiet life?
I don’t know. I’m just somebody who tries to be honest, who tries to concentrate on pure things. I don’t know, I’m just myself. I’m not hiding. I don’t like artificiality, but I do like good music, I do like to meet friends, I do like to amuse myself. But I’m not somebody who absolutely wants to be in a spotlight. I just try to do my job, I try to be good, and voila.
How much of what you design is an extension of you as a person? Things as your feeling, or things that you’re thinking at the time which may go into the way you design a piece.
It’s very hard to say where I begin or my work stops. I can’t figure this out. Everything is mix. But this doesn’t mean that I work for myself. I am very aware of the fact that I’m working for thousands of people. But I do have trust in my own feeling as a woman and as a designer. I don’t know where the women begin and the designer stops.
You must get asked this all the times, I’m going to ask you anyway. What’s your biggest fashion do and don’t?
My biggest fashion do and don’t? Like I said I’m not a dictator, I hate this kind of game. Everybody can do what he likes. I’m an anarchist in that. I don’t to say you have to do this or you don’t do that. It’s really too ridiculous to me. We are adult women, adult men. I hope we know how we want to dress. Voila.
Ann Demeulemeester
Interview at Talk Asia/CNN
24 September 2006
The first thing that I want to ask you, people say ‘clothes make person.’ do you think that’s true? Do you think person make clothes?
Ann Demeulemeester: I think clothes can help to explain better a person. But one can also fake with his clothes. One can play a role with his clothes. I think the best thing is that there is something honest about the way you dress yourself, if your appearance is right with your inner, then you are really well dressed.
You’re known as the deconstructionist, tell us hat exactly that means
This is kind of a stamp, a label that they put on my back but I don’t agree with that. I don’t deconstruct, I construct. So, I’m starting from zero, I really construct a new silhouette. So it has everything to do with construction, not with deconstruction, deconstruction is breaking down; it’s not what I’m doing. But this is maybe because I sometimes let a soul of garment speak, I sometimes show something from the inside of the garment, something which is not classic, I’m breaking rules, that’s maybe why they give me this little title.
You like fabric and texture, why have you chosen these 2 aspects to base on?
I think fabric and texture are just two tools. It’s material; it’s like paint for painter. For me, it’s my material. And the most important for me is to construct new silhouettes, to do a lot of work on cuts, to bring emotion in a garment; the way a garment is sculpt. It’s a 3 dimensional job, and in fact it’s my job. And I try to make clothes with soul, and people who wear it can feel it by the way it’s cut, the way it hangs on the body, the way it moves. So I think the main thing of my concentration is to cut movement in 3 dimensional forms and to add emotion.
Fashion by its very nature is circle, we see things coming and going. How do you make sure that you keep your work fresh?
I think I’m somebody who really looks forward. I don’t go back in time. I think the job of fashion designer is to look forward, to be sensitive, to feel what we want for tomorrow. So I do believe in the future and I think my work is like a life work. Every collection is like a step into a life work. And every collection could not be there if the collection before wasn’t there. It’s an evolution.
Looking through your pieces here in the shop, there’s a lot of black and a lot of white. Does that describe you as a person?
I don’t know if I’m black and white. I think I’m both. I think black for me represents the most poetic color, but it cannot live without white, which is for me purity. So I need both. For me, it’s essence of my work. And because I think it’s like an architect, I construct garments and for me color is more like decoration, color is something that comes after the pure form. So sometimes I leave it with black and white. I have a feeling that I have enough with that to explain what I want to explain. I want to focus on the shape and the silhouette. But sometimes I feel like using colors too. In every collection there is colors but it’s more about shade, about subtle variation, it’s not screamy colors.
Fashion is all about taking risk. But how do you know what’s going to work? Like when you design a garment out of parachute nylon? How do you know that people will go for it?
I never know. I go with my feeling. I think it’s important. I don’t have fear. I just follow what I feel as a woman, as a designer. And like I said, it’s my job to throw it open, to think again, to come up with new ideas. So I don’t know. No gut, no glory. I just try. I try to give the best of myself, you know. And I can only hope that people will like it.
Any risk that you’ve taken and you’ve regret?
No, no regret. I think that every steps that you take in life has its meaning, has its purpose. So even if I made a fault, I learn from it. So I don’t have regret.
You are often described as a member of Antwerp Six, a very famous group of Belgian fashion designer. What do you think make you different as a group for everything else that it out there at the time?
I think that as young kids, we were really ambitious, we were really believing in our talents. We really wanted to work really hard. And I think that in Belgium, there is no fashion tradition and I think it made us quite free and finding a new voice. And at the same time I think I realized that what I was doing had to be really good, had to have its own voice, otherwise nobody would have looked, nobody was expecting something coming out of Belgium. I don’t know what the secret is. The only thing is that sometimes in history, it happens that people find each other, start certain energy, came out together and I think although we are very different, the impact of this different people at the same time coming out with something new made it exceptional.
When you’re known as being a part of the group as you’re in Antwerp Six, does it make it more difficult to stand out as an individual fashion designer?
We never have intension to form a group. It’s just because six people come out of a country where nobody was expecting anything from, six very different individual and six very difficult names, so it was easier for the press to say the six Belgian than to pronounce Dries Van Noten, Ann Demeulemeester, Walter Van Beirendonck, Martin Margiela, it was too difficult.
As far as Asia goes, I supposed we’ve got a fashion hub of Tokyo. Other than that, what asian city do you think will be up and coming?
I’m somebody who creates clothes. I’m not somebody who analyzes market, I’m not functioning like that. I have people who work with me, who are very talented in doing this, so I prefer to concentrate on creation, to give my works to the world. And I think it’s a natural selection. Which city or which people are attracted to my clothes, it comes naturally.
Since your asian operation has done pretty well. Why do you think that they’ve been so successful? What do you think people here are so receipt to your work?
Emotions are universal. They are not linked to certain countries. And I think people who are sensitive; they are attracted to my clothes. They come like that just by themselves. And I think for me it’s a beautiful presence to what I’m doing. Because when I was young, I chose this profession because it looks like, to me, like a modern ways of communication. It looks to me like a profession where I could communicate with a lot of people. It’s like a painter who paints, or a musician who makes songs, or a writer who writes a book. I make clothes to communicate. And the beautiful thing is you send something out to the world and the world comes back to you. And for me, it’s amazing.
How would you define Asian style at the moment?
I believe in individuality, I don’t believe in one mass thing for everybody. So I appreciate personality. But what I can feel when I am here is that there’s a lot of energy, there’s a belief in the future, which is really beautiful I think. And I think Asian women are amazing. You can feel strength, a will to a lot of things, they have a beautiful skin, and you can see spirituality in their eyes, which makes them very attractive to me.
How do you see the future of the fashion trade in Asia taking shape?
I think that people are discovering different fashion now. I think that the first thing that gets here were maybe like the main conventional big houses. But I think that Asian women are now also discovering that there’s something more than a label, that you can have clothing with a soul, that you can have emotion, that is not only about label. And I think that they are discovering this. What I try to do is that I really want to express a respect for people who are wearing my clothes, and that’s why I never put like big label or brand name. If I meet somebody, I want to meet a woman or a man, I don’t want to meet a label, so I think this is important for them to understand that you don’t need to show off with labels to be well dressed I think. But it’s ok, it’s an evolution.
Was fashion always a dream for you or what you always wanted to do?
No. I don’t know, it just came out by a certain moment in my life. What I always like to do was to create; I think that’s the most important thing. And I know since I was a child that I wanted to create, to invent. But it could be all kinds of things. What I liked the most was to draw, to make drawing, to make portraits of people. And if you make a portrait, automatically you are also drawing clothing. And that I started to be interested who was wearing what and why. So at a certain point I thought ok, maybe that could be my profession, this personality study. But that’s where the idea came from, so I was 15 or 16 when I got this idea.
Your husband, Patrick Robyn, he was your childhood sweetheart. And you did collaborate together, which they say it’s dangerous thing, never work with your husband or wife. How does it work for you?
I just love it. It’s a very natural thing for me. I do believe that you meet certain people in life because you have to meet them. And my husband I is one of these people. When I saw him the first time I just knew that this is my soul mate. And I think the fact that we grew up together, that we become adult together made us like one voice, made us stronger together. And my husband is like an artist, he is very creative person, who is very inspiring to me and we live together, we work together, it’s so natural. I can’t imagine that it cold be different.
You have a son, Viktor. He is 20 years old. Has he shown any attitude for the artistic way of life?
Yes, absolutely. I think that he’s our child, so I think it’s a bit in a gene. He is very creative, he is a person who has open mind, who likes to experiment all these elements, he’s got a bit form his parent, I think. But he’s not somebody who is interested in fashion. I think he has to find his own voice, and that’s what he is doing now, he’s in art school in Belgium. He’s experimenting, working, which is good.
Where do you get most of your inspiration from when you try to come up with your design?
I don’t know where it comes from; it just comes. But if I want to create inspiration, I ask question to myself, like very difficult question. And by thinking to find an answer, the moment that I find the answer, I have the inspiration, that’s the way I try to create inspiration for myself. It’s thinking, it comes from inside.
In a trade where products are very down to personal taste, how important is it to listen to people who might not like what you do?
I think it’s always very interesting to listen to people, what they like, what they don’t like, were they interested in or not? I always learn about human nature if I listen to that. But at the same time, I’m somebody who follow my own voice, and I’m convinced that people who think like me, who appreciate what I’m doing, they’ll find my products.
Many fashion designers love the glamorous party life style. You seem to shy away from that. What’s so good about quiet life?
I don’t know. I’m just somebody who tries to be honest, who tries to concentrate on pure things. I don’t know, I’m just myself. I’m not hiding. I don’t like artificiality, but I do like good music, I do like to meet friends, I do like to amuse myself. But I’m not somebody who absolutely wants to be in a spotlight. I just try to do my job, I try to be good, and voila.
How much of what you design is an extension of you as a person? Things as your feeling, or things that you’re thinking at the time which may go into the way you design a piece.
It’s very hard to say where I begin or my work stops. I can’t figure this out. Everything is mix. But this doesn’t mean that I work for myself. I am very aware of the fact that I’m working for thousands of people. But I do have trust in my own feeling as a woman and as a designer. I don’t know where the women begin and the designer stops.
You must get asked this all the times, I’m going to ask you anyway. What’s your biggest fashion do and don’t?
My biggest fashion do and don’t? Like I said I’m not a dictator, I hate this kind of game. Everybody can do what he likes. I’m an anarchist in that. I don’t to say you have to do this or you don’t do that. It’s really too ridiculous to me. We are adult women, adult men. I hope we know how we want to dress. Voila.
fugfashion
Active Member
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i want to see her son !
plus does anyone have a picture of a girl/woman in the snow wearing all Ann Demeulemeester. I think it was in a book published by i-D some years ago ..
plus does anyone have a picture of a girl/woman in the snow wearing all Ann Demeulemeester. I think it was in a book published by i-D some years ago ..
There's the full transcript of Ann Demeulemeester's interview on CNN (Talk Asia). I think it's more accurate,so here it is..
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/a...emeester.script/index.html?section=cnn_latest
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/a...emeester.script/index.html?section=cnn_latest
JuiceMajor
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Luv her new collection!!
ElectricAlyce
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Dazed Digital has a interview with her now, with some yummie old pictures
http://www.dazeddigital.com/incoming/a-conversation-with-ann-demeulemeester/
{picture from Dazed Digital)
http://www.dazeddigital.com/incoming/a-conversation-with-ann-demeulemeester/
{picture from Dazed Digital)
