Stefano Gallici has unveiled his first campaign as creative director of Ann Demeulemeester. Since joining the Paris-based house in 2023, Gallici has steadily shaped a close-knit creative circle around the brand, on and off the runway – including Kids, his visual diary premiered by HERO. This new campaign marks a rare move for Ann Demeulemeester, a label that has long sidestepped traditional advertising, and coincides with the opening of a new Milan boutique.

Photographed by Nikolai von Bismarck and styled by Elodie David, the imagery feels deliberately personal as Gallici sets the story at Villa Manin, the 18th-century Napoleonic-era villa near his hometown in Friuli, folding his own history into the house’s deep-rooted codes. “The grandeur and restraint of Villa Manin echo the collection’s tension between intimacy and monumentality, austerity and romanticism,” the release notes explain.

Set against the villa’s imposing architecture, the SS26 collection – military jackets, poetic tailoring, flashes of sportswear and rock ’n’ roll silhouettes – unfolds in scenes of timeless romance.