The Solitary One: Love, Leather, and Lace—Ann Demeulemeester SS26 Takes the Stage by Stefano Gallici

Model on the catwalk at the Ann Demeulemeester fashion show in Paris, Spring Summer 2026 Ready To Wear Fashion Week Photo by Valerio Mezzanotti / NOWFASHION

Dear Shaded Viewers,

Stefano Gallici channels the legend of Ann Demeulemeester with a show that feels less like a fashion presentation and more like the opening chords of a midnight concert, where every look trembles between fragility and strength. Like the best live gigs, it’s a setlist chosen for resonance, not just spectacle—music, memory, and emotion stitched into every seam.

Gallici’s rock background is more than a signature: it’s a driving force. The collection is shaped by songs, posters, and poetic references—Hotel California, Morrison Hotel, the athletic romance of basketball shorts, and literary antiheroes. Delicate silk glides against sweat-stained jerseys, lace flirts with leather, and empire dresses meet repatched denim. The runway’s palette, spanning officer reds and washed whites, feels like a faded setlist scrawled in the margins of a lover’s notebook.

The tension is intoxicating—classic romance against the rebellion of ’70s music, dreamy silhouettes armored with boots and raw denim. There’s a softness here, never weak: corseted tops and hand-sketched tees reveal the designer’s own vulnerability, while lace-up boots and undone laces bring raw power. Fragility is honored but never fetishized, always balanced by a refusal to be sentimental.

Gallici’s reverence for Ann Demeulemeester is palpable. His vision collides respect for the house’s uncompromising legacy with his personal soundtrack of punk, garage, and indie. Uniformity is undone not with rebellion for its own sake, but with grace—each look an emotional performance, each stitch a lyric. Accessories nod to both sporting nostalgia and countryside tradition, feathers alongside vintage socks and headbands.

Watching this show is like catching a band’s last, legendary encore. The styling, pulsing with tension, confidence, and romantic grit, evokes the thrill of turning loneliness into art, heartbreak into anthem. Gallici’s silhouettes and attitude are as rebellious as a guitar riff at midnight—but always poetic, always searching for connection.

This SS26 show channels the haunted beauty and kinetic energy of Ann Demeulemeester’s legacy, played on Gallici’s own rock-and-roll frequency. The result? A collection that walks the line between daydream and afterparty, with every garment taking its place onstage.

Later,

Diane