MILAN — Ann Demeulemeester is welcoming a recent creative director, naming Stefano Gallici to the highest post. His first collection is to be unveiled at a fashion show during Paris Fashion Week on Sept. 30.

Gallici succeeds Ludovic de Saint Sernin, who’s exiting the brand after only six months.

Born in 1996, Gallici is just not recent to the Ann Demeulemeester world, as he was previously menswear designer on the brand. He began his profession in Antwerp, Belgium, working as an assistant designer to Haider Ackermann, after which moved on to the Antonioli Group in January 2019.

In 2020, he joined the Ann Demeulemeester fashion house, based in Antwerp. That was the 12 months the brand was acquired by the Antonioli Group, established by Claudio Antonioli.

“Stefano immediately demonstrated a robust creativity and a transparent vision for Ann Demeulemeester,” Antonioli said. “He represents the DNA of the brand with an eye fixed to the long run.”

The Ann Demeulemeester label had been designed by an in-house team for the reason that departure of creative director Sébastien Meunier in July 2020. Shortly afterward, Antonioli revealed he had acquired the brand, including its complete archive, the headquarters, its historic flagship in Antwerp, and its showroom space in Paris.

In his debut fall 2023 show for the brand in Paris, de Saint Sernin, a former Balmain designer who launched his namesake collection in 2017 and is thought for his sensual, gender-fluid creations, veered toward a more seductive silhouette, showing loads of skin, compared with Demeulemeester’s soigné tailoring and dark glamour.

A pensive woman with gothic leanings, and certainly one of the unique Antwerp Six, Demeulemeester began showing in Paris in 1992 and quickly became a fashion star, with WWD anointing her “Queen Ann” in a headline following a blockbuster collection in 1995 that might influence runways in other fashion capitals. She added menswear a 12 months later.

Demeulemeester bowed out of fashion in 2013 to embark on other ventures, namely pottery and ceramics. Nonetheless, she stays near the brand, while her homeware and lighting designs — amongst other projects — are on display within the Antwerp store.

In June last 12 months, she staged an exhibition through the Pitti Uomo men’s trade show in Florence celebrating 40 years of the label. 

Since taking full control of the corporate, Antonioli has shifted just about all manufacturing to Italy and has trimmed the variety of wholesale doors by 60 percent, eyeing a retail expansion for the brand and restoring its high-end positioning.

Antonioli founded his first Milan retail outpost in 1987 and is a cofounder of streetwear conglomerate and Off-White licensee Recent Guards Group, which was acquired by Farfetch in 2019. 

Along with his Antonioli stores — with physical locations in Milan and Torino in Italy, Lugano in Switzerland and Ibiza in Spain, plus the web site — the entrepreneur established an organization called Dreamers Factory encompassing Ann Demeulemeester and future projects that relate to his personal passions.