Ann Demeulemeester

In the early 1990s, with the economic crisis, the first Gulf War and the devastation caused by AIDS, fashion reflected the times. It was sombre, desperate and sometimes violent. Clothing underwent deconstruction and recycling, and fashion shows became fashion performances.

In the early 1980s, six young people came together in Antwerp and, armed with nothing but vision, courage, and radical independence, transformed the fashion world. Forty years later, they look back on a time when creativity trumped convention and commerce.