Ann Demeulemeester presents its Fall Winter 2026 campaign in Margate, following two young figures through the seaside town on a sunny afternoon. They walk with an elegant, elongated stride that the house compares to antelopes, creating an unusual presence among fishermen, old houses, empty streets and the blue sea.
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The campaign builds its atmosphere around that sense of distance. The pair appears connected to their surroundings while carrying an almost unreal quality. Their expressions remain unreadable. Blank stares and absent gazes suggest attention fixed somewhere beyond the immediate scene, leaving their thoughts deliberately unresolved.
Memory and anticipation shape the campaign’s accompanying text. The figures may recall another life, a past love or a summer that already exists somewhere in their memory. They may also imagine a relationship still to come, an unseen winter or another summer waiting somewhere ahead. Ann Demeulemeester leaves those possibilities open and allows uncertainty to define the images.
That ambiguity also affects the campaign’s treatment of time. The afternoon belongs to no clearly defined season. Summer light meets clothing associated with colder months, creating the sensation of a moment suspended between one period and the next.
The sea remains constantly present, though the pair passes beside it without turning toward the water. Wind becomes an active element in the images, catching fabric and changing the shapes of the clothes as the figures continue through Margate. The tails of a black velvet dress lift in the breeze, while a loose shirt opens slightly around the neck.
Smaller details carry the same sense of movement. A silk scarf and ribbon respond to the air, while a distressed T-shirt introduces a rougher element among the softer fabrics. These pieces sit close to the body while the wind changes their position, creating fleeting details within the otherwise controlled appearance of the two figures.
The campaign never establishes a clear destination. The pair could wander without purpose or head toward somewhere far beyond the town. That lack of explanation gives their walk through Margate a dreamlike character. They appear detached from the ordinary activity around them, passing through familiar streets while remaining psychologically elsewhere.
Ann Demeulemeester uses this uncertainty to frame Fall Winter 2026 through memory, distance and anticipation. The seaside town provides fishermen, houses, empty streets and an uninterrupted view of the water, while the two figures remain the campaign’s central mystery. Their clothes respond to the wind as their expressions reveal little about where they have come from or where they intend to go.
The campaign leaves them somewhere between seasons, between a past summer and an imagined future, walking through Margate as though they have entered directly from a memory and have yet to decide whether they want to return.
