Ann Demeulemeester
Good fashion is like rock music: all anarchy and revolt.Collection: Music
It's too easy to say that orange is happy and black is sad. To me, black is perfect. You can fill it with the emotion you want to express.Collection: Sad
Beauty of mind creates freedom. Freedom of mind creates beauty.
I've always done things my way.
Jewelry is something that has to do with emotion. That aspect of jewelry really interests me.
I need human feelings to fit garments. I couldn't do it just, like, on an object - it's too close to our body. It's like a skin you are making, so you need one's feelings to make a garment.
I am just a Flemish girl with her feet on the ground.
Ann Demeulemeester is an adult brand now, with its own identity and legacy that is able to continue growing without me.
Creating is a lonely thing in a lot of ways.
When you see or hear something beautiful, it's like that thing is transmitting a kind of energy, and if that energy helped create the work, the only thing I can do is play it when I finally show the work.
Fashion is silly. Perhaps I should say fashion in general is silly. But then everything is, in general. If you talk about music in general, it's silly; about magazines, in general, they're silly.
I don't look at other people's work because I don't want to be distracted by their ideas.
Things aren't interesting if you level them. It's the voice that's interesting.
What I like to wear, I do myself. I don't know how that sounds, but it's the truth. My life is so mixed with my profession that I don't know where I begin or my work ends.
I always followed my own path.
I'm not confused about what's happening in fashion, because I follow my own direction and go.
I had to find my own language in jewelry. That was important to me; it really had to be what I would love to have myself.
The future is open, and I never make plans. As long as it's interesting to me, I try to live my life to the fullest.
It's most beautiful thing about my work. I have reached people who I would never have known without my work.
I became a fashion designer by accident. I loved to make portrait drawings when I was a teenager, and from that came the interest in what people were wearing and why they were wearing it.
I feel more European than Belgian. However I do think that my Flemish roots have an impact on my character and culture.
As a young girl, I dreamed of having a voice in fashion.
For me, Gothic is something from my youth, when I had a heavy metal phase.
My work has always been about authentic feeling, and I think we live in a time where we need that.
I can make 10 jackets of the same colour, same two pockets and same length, that will look like 10 completely different jackets when you put them on. It's about the way they are cut - it makes them look and feel completely different and move differently, and that's a never-ending study. People who wear my clothes will know exactly what I mean.
Black is not sad. Bright colours are what depress me. They're so... empty. Black is poetic. How do you imagine a poet? In a bright yellow jacket? Probably not.Collection: Fashion
Those that think my clothes are androgynous also still believe that women should look like Barbie dolls. That's precisely the problem, the deep-rooted assumptions about what is feminine.Collection: Believe
I want to put a soul in a garment. I don't want my clothes to be perfect, because human beings are not perfect.Collection: Fashion
Fashion has a right to exist, because it permits the people to define themselves over and over again.Collection: Fashion
I just wait because I think people will find me. And I’m not the kind of person who will knock on somebody’s door. I wait. If they’re good for me, they will come towards me.Collection: Thinking
Music is very inspiring to me because "true" music releases a true energy that is just inspiring. It's like when you see a beautiful painting or a wonderful film. You just receive this creative energy, and all of a sudden you want to create too.Collection: Beautiful
Good fashion for me is like rock ‘n’ roll – there’s always a little rebellion in it.Collection: Fashion
I want to put a soul in a garment. I don't want my clothes to be perfect, because human beings are not perfect. You can meet somebody in one of my jackets and it can all look a bit wrong, but also human and beautiful. Cutting nonchalance into a garment is difficult, because you can't just make an oversized or an asymmetric garment - it will look ugly. Making it look natural is delicate work. If it's too obvious, then it looks fake. Balancing the garment is a painstaking task, because you have to keep in mind how the clothes move.Collection: Beautiful
For me black is not dark, it's poetic. I don't think of gothic I think of classic - it's a big difference.Collection: Dark
I don't like to generalize; I don't talk about the woman, because the woman doesn't exist. We're just lucky that we are able to choose. Those who feel like I do, who feel close to me find my product and find my soul. Each designer has a role to fulfill and you can never disappoint your audience, because it's for them that you're working. Naturally you always evolve, but my collection is about soul, about power.Collection: Soul
I've always been intrigued by cutout silhouettes. They are so intriguing, so poetic-the shadow of a soul. They tell everything about a character and they are open to be filled with one's own imagination.Collection: Character
Fashion has a reason to be, because in fashion you can find new kinds of expression about human beings. It's my way to communicate.Collection: Fashion
Black is not sad... Black is poetic.Collection: Black
I'd like to cut an attitude into clothes.Collection: Attitude
Who could imagine a poet wearing anything other than black?Collection: Black
My work is nice, natural, it's never "been there done that," my work remains very interesting without losing my soul - because it's really me, and I am always honest with myself. I don't care what's in or out, I just listen to myself. And it's very nice to able to work like that. At the beginning people might have wondered what I was doing, but now they know my line, my evolution, I'm respected for that and that's a wonderful feeling.Collection: Nice
I work for men that I would love to meet, somebody who I could fall in love with, someone who intrigues me.Collection: Falling In Love
I'm very aware of the influence I've had, and I'm very pleased with that, because it proves that my work was necessary, that people liked it, and that it was right for its time which is a big compliment. But of course, this means I now have to move on. If more people are doing what I'm doing, I have to evolve. I'm pushed toward a new direction, and I have to let myself be tempted, find out where I can go.Collection: Moving
A new time is coming both for my personal life, and the brand Ann Demeulemeester. I feel it's time to separate our paths.Collection: Path
I never leave anything behind. It's like a history, a chain, a line of life, you just have to move and make new steps, and keep it evolving - but my soul is my soul.Collection: Moving