After Italian luxury-streetwear retailer Claudio Antonioli acquired Ann Demeulemeester in 2020, the label’s change of ownership became a bitter rupture with the Antwerp fashion culture that had defined it. In September 2021, Belgian newspaper De Tijd reported that 42 of the company’s 48 Antwerp-based employees had been dismissed, despite many having worked for the house for decades and having originally been hired under Ann Demeulemeester herself. The company was then relocated from Antwerp to Milan, severing the operational ties between the label and the Flemish design community from which the Antwerp Six had emerged. Antonioli defended the move by saying that Milan was “a fashion city” where recruiting a new team of 25 people would be easier. The reorganization was followed by extraordinary creative instability: Nina Maria Nitsche was brought in as a largely behind-the-scenes or “ghost” creative director, Sébastien Meunier departed in 2020, Ludovic de Saint-Sernin lasted less than six months and produced only one collection, and Stefano Gallici became the house’s fourth creative director in under three years. The commercial consequences were severe. For the 2022 Italian fiscal year, AD Milano S.R.L. reported a net loss of €10,555,311 against turnover of only €9,166,499. What began as an attempt to modernize and internationalize an iconic Belgian label instead became a case study in the cultural and human cost of relocating a heritage fashion house: its longtime workforce was dismantled, its Antwerp identity weakened, and its creative direction repeatedly reset before the business could establish a stable post-founder era.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 2020s
The Antwerp Exodus: Ann Demeulemeester’s Belgian Workforce Cut from 48 to 6
Ann Demeulemeester / AD Milano S.R.L. / 2020s
After Italian luxury-streetwear retailer Claudio Antonioli acquired Ann Demeulemeester in 2020, the label’s change of ownership became a bitter rupture with the Antwerp fashion culture that had defined it. In September 2021, Belgian newspaper De Tijd reported that 42 of the company’s 48 Antwerp-based employees had been dismissed, despite many having worked for the house for decades and having originally been hired under Ann Demeulemeester herself. The company was then relocated from Antwerp to Milan, severing the operational ties between the label and the Flemish design community from which the Antwerp Six had emerged. Antonioli defended the move by saying that Milan was “a fashion city” where recruiting a new team of 25 people would be easier. The reorganization was followed by extraordinary creative instability: Nina Maria Nitsche was brought in as a largely behind-the-scenes or “ghost” creative director, Sébastien Meunier departed in 2020, Ludovic de Saint-Sernin lasted less than six months and produced only one collection, and Stefano Gallici became the house’s fourth creative director in under three years. The commercial consequences were severe. For the 2022 Italian fiscal year, AD Milano S.R.L. reported a net loss of €10,555,311 against turnover of only €9,166,499. What began as an attempt to modernize and internationalize an iconic Belgian label instead became a case study in the cultural and human cost of relocating a heritage fashion house: its longtime workforce was dismantled, its Antwerp identity weakened, and its creative direction repeatedly reset before the business could establish a stable post-founder era.
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