Italian artist and guitarist Marco Fusinato sat in front of a wall of Mesa amps as he played. His guttural improvised chords creating expansive waves of reverberating distortion that echoed through the disused concrete space. Foundations shook, Stefano Gallici’s vision emerged. For oddballs like myself, there’s a comfort in noise, particularly guitar distortion; its amorphous anti-melodies weaving into a unique sonic mantra of romance and rebellion. It’s a soundtrack befitting Ann Demeulemeester, a house steeped in rock ’n’ roll heritage, deep emotion and abstract artistry.

Since joining as artistic director in 2023, Gallici has evolved the brand alongside a community that embodies it. Surrounding himself with musicians, poets, photographers, stylists, curators and makers who have felt the brand’s pull, and who explore the same juxtapositions as he does: light and dark, loud and quiet, harmony and dissonance, passion and precision. Sat in attendance were musicians October and the Eyes, Sabina Hellstrom, Thomas Raggi and Sid Simons, Instagram curator and DJ Sheetnoise, photographer Jason Renaud, and, on the runway, the Shears twins, aka The Garden. Some of these talents were featured in Gallici’s recent photography project, Kids, exclusively premiered by HERO.

And here’s the key: Gallici is part of this community himself – not curating it, living it. This season the designer took inspiration from his adolescent days discovering music and art; first picking up a guitar, first dropping the needle on a record you’d never heard of before. It’s a rite-of-passage the majority of us have experienced and look back on with bright nostalgia. Remember the first time you heard your favourite record? Remember having your mind blown?

Guests were each given a ‘Wall of Reference‘, featuring the likes of 15th-century poet François Villon alongside contemporary Guitar innovator and artist Remko Scha, photographs by Hidemi Ogata, Giasco Bertoli and Paul Grund, texts by Hunter S. Thompson and Jack Kerouac, and Stevie Nicks’ handwritten lyrics for Fleetwood Mac’s 1975 track, Rhiannon, from Rumours – “My mom used to play it every morning,” said Gallici in the show notes. “What a compelling aural combination, sounds lost and found.” These could well have been pages ripped from magazines, shared by friends and found in clubs that Gallici had collected as a kid and stuck to his bedroom wall, shaping his vision today. 

That sense of youthful discovery was present throughout the collection, through the poetic, layered silhouettes that spoke directly to those drawn by Ann Demeulemeester herself. Romance distilled across eras: ruffled collars spilled across delicate sheer shirting alongside velvet tailoring and Victorian Gothic lace skirts. Straps hung from sleeves in that beautifully dishevelled manner distinctive to Ann Demeulemeester, and trousers cascaded to the floor. The classical fused with contemporary through worn-in post-punk parkas, leather biker jackets and leg warmers peeking from belted-up boots. From black to white and back again, a monochrome palette was only broken by the odd pair of jeans – a new addition to Gallici’s repertoire, ripped and patched-up. There’s a sense of Lost Boys royalty to Gallici’s work, of a community where all are anointed with delicate silver crowns, buttoned capes and found feathers; all are elevated for their individuality.

An ode to teenage discovery and creativity, Gallici signed off the show notes with a neccessary request: “Let me dream a bit more.”

As the last look – a black sheer cape – swept across the runway, the sound of distortion remained in the air, guiding us to the afterparty…