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Demeulemeester reinvents black with subtle color
July 16, 1996
Web posted at: 6:00 p.m. EDTFrom Correspondent Elsa Klensch
PARIS (CNN) -- The fall season signals a first for Antwerp designer Ann Demeulemeester -- it's the first time she's used bright colors in her collection to offset her favored black.
And the most important of the new, brighter shades, she says, is red, evoking passion and danger. Demeulemeester uses red to accent her asymmetrical cuts -- cuts that she twists to create an illusion of clothes moving around the body.
(765K QuickTime movie)
"When I started this collection," says Demeulemeester, "I didn't know lengths or anything. "I made clothes that all look like they are twisted, but aren't. So it's like there is a movement in the clothing and in the body."
Demeulemeester explains that she wanted the colors in this new collection to have "full intensity."
"I also think that ... I use color in a big piece, but sometimes I use it in a very subtle way," she says. "I think that if the color is strong and you put the color on the right place, then you get also the full intensity even if it is only a little thing."
Some of the "right places" for red, she says, are in the make-up of her models' eyes, or on the soles of their boots.
"It's very strange," she says. "It's not evident and that's what I like."
But Demeulemeester has not forsaken black.
"I wanted to reinvent black because I cannot stand that people are saying black is out," she says, "as long as I have the impression that I can design new black."
For evening wear, Demeulemeester created a long black coat.
"For evening I just made it the longest possible," she explains. "I work with coats with trains and skirts with trains."
It creates, she says, a modern look, one that is both aggressive and beautiful.
"There is really a tension, I think," says Demeulemeester. "That's what I wanted anyway."
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