Ann Demeulemeester SS27: Lonesome Heaven

At Ann Demeulemeester, romance has always carried distance, memory and a sense of clothes already touched by life, and for Spring/Summer 2027 Stefano Gallici carried that sensibility into the Californian desert, where dust, aviation history, faded Hollywood and music became the emotional framework for Lonesome Heaven.

The collection began during a solo trip through Los Angeles and Palm Springs, where Gallici rented a cabin, drove through near-empty landscapes and listened to Kyuss’s Welcome to Sky Valley, allowing the desert to reduce the season to black, white and blue denim while texture, wear and layering carried the story forward. Shown at Réfectoire des Cordeliers, a venue long associated with the house, the runway connected personal travel with institutional memory and gave the collection a sense of return.

A Desert Filled With Ghosts

Gallici’s California appears as a place of faded glamour, and his encounter with Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard sharpened that vision into clothing marked by age, erosion and history. Silk tailoring, waistcoats and cummerbunds revealed patches of white cotton lining, produced through thermal bonding so the outer surface appeared gradually worn away, while faded denim, bleached cargo trousers, stained cream fabrics and patinated leather extended the effect across the collection.

This treatment gave Ann Demeulemeester SS27 one of its strongest ideas: decay became part of construction. Garments looked as if they had survived years of use before reaching the runway, carrying fictional pasts through abrasion, discoloration and softened surfaces. The technique gave glamour a weathered intimacy, turning imperfection into something almost archival.

The silhouettes moved freely across centuries, bringing Victorian blouses, Edwardian necklines, jabots, Napoleon waistcoats, cropped tuxedos and cummerbunds into contact with cargo trousers, denim and military jackets. Gallici kept the torso controlled through fitted tailoring and military structure, then released movement through asymmetric ruffles, transparent organza, trailing ribbons, fringed jersey and low-crotch trousers.

The opening look established this tension through a white lace vest, cream cotton trousers and a déchirée tutu built from shaggy wool, tulle and silk crêpon, while the following look placed a sleeveless Napoleon waistcoat over an asymmetric ruffled skirt and sheer organza maxi. American references entered more forcefully through patinated aviation jackets inspired by Howard Hughes’s historic hangar in Playa Vista, bringing utilitarian leather into the house’s grunge vocabulary.

White Under the Desert Sun

The first half of Ann Demeulemeester SS27 remained largely within white, cream, ivory, chalk and ecru, allowing texture to carry the visual intensity. Chantilly lace became delicate against skin, wool tulle held dry volume, silk crêpon moved softly, and organza created transparent depth, while staining and distressing kept the palette raw.

As black entered later, military jackets gained greater severity, lace became darker in mood, and petrol-black feathers appeared across skirts and epaulettes. Blue denim worked between these two states, carrying an everyday American familiarity into the collection while preserving the emphasis on wear. The sequencing gave the runway a gradual shift in emotional temperature, from bleached daylight toward a heavier, nocturnal register.

The aviation jackets gave the Californian narrative another strong anchor through their patinated surfaces and physical weight. The finale belonged to Ethel Cain, who appeared in an Edwardian-style black Chantilly lace dress developed collaboratively with Gallici, giving the final look the intimacy of genuine creative exchange.

Music Enters the Ann Demeulemeester Wardrobe

Music has become central to the way Gallici builds Ann Demeulemeester, and SS27 made that relationship visible through the people surrounding the show. Chelsea Wolfe, whose music accompanied his Californian journey, performed live, while Ethel Cain moved from artistic affinity into direct design collaboration.

Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, whose history is closely tied to the Palm Desert scene, walked the runway in a pinstripe suit with a pale denim shirt. Their presence gave the collection a cultural world beyond styling, allowing musicians to function as collaborators, models and carriers of the house’s identity. This growing creative circle makes Gallici’s Ann Demeulemeester feel increasingly lived in, built through exchange rather than isolated image-making.

Footwear gave Lonesome Heaven physical weight through heavy-buckled gladiator sandals, wedge variations, dirty white ballet flats and a new biker boot loaded with buckles and zippers. These pieces grounded the floating organza, lace and trailing ribbons above them while extending the house’s interest in footwear that combines utility with attitude. The biker boot also linked the collection to the brand’s renewed visibility among younger customers, giving SS27 a commercial element that sat naturally inside the runway language.

Stefano Gallici Claims Greater Freedom

SS27 marks an important stage in Gallici’s work for Ann Demeulemeester because the house vocabulary now feels increasingly integrated with his own biography.

With the brand’s cultural relevance growing and its younger following expanding, Lonesome Heaven arrives at a moment when creative confidence and renewed visibility are beginning to reinforce each other.

Gallici entered the desert alone and returned with a broader world around Ann Demeulemeester, one populated by musicians, worn clothes, private memories and a romantic idea of beauty shaped by time. The result feels personal and assured, preserving the house’s poetic severity while giving Gallici enough space to make solitude, music, memory and wear speak in his own increasingly confident voice.