Ann Demeulemeester’s autumn winter collection channels nocturnal reverie
The Belgian designer's new film explores the poetic inspirations behind Dear Night Thoughts, her Paris show collection that draws from punk rebellion and the literary dreamscapes of Rimbaud.
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A solitary face emerges from darkness, eyes luminous against black fabric, the gaze neither quite present nor absent. This is the opening moment of Ann Demeulemeester’s new film for autumn and winter 2026, a meditation on memory, youth rebellion and the nocturnal reveries that haunt the designer’s imagination. Directed by Pedro Osório and Reia Lise, the work unfolds as cinema rather than fashion spectacle, layering the rebellious iconography of punk youth with the delicate philosophical melancholy of Arthur Rimbaud.
The collection itself, which showed as ‘Dear Night Thoughts’ in Paris, draws its breath from late night dreamscapes and the poetry of another era. Demeulemeester has long inhabited the terrain between elegance and disquiet, between refined tailoring and the aesthetic of deliberate displacement. What emerges is garments that feel less like objects to be admired and more like extensions of a particular emotional landscape: silhouettes that suggest movement captured mid thought, fabrics that hold the quality of fabric worn by time and intention.
The film’s soundtrack, ‘Space Girl’ written by Shirley Collins and performed by Beguiling Junior alongside Okay Kaya and Oli Burslem, carries a hypnotic quality that anchors the visual narrative. Styling by Elodie David and casting by Ben Grimes creates a world of studied naturalness: makeup by Inge Grognard and hair by Anthony Turner suggest a aesthetic of beautiful negligence rather than polish. The result is a collection that speaks not to aspiration but to recognition, to those for whom darkness holds its own kind of poetry.
Imagery courtesy of Ann Demeulemeester (@anndemeulemeester_official).