Night butterflies floated like ghosts among the ancient arches of Couvent des Cordeliers. Their precious trail fluttered in the dark as the only iridescent grip for the eye, otherwise lost in the deep darkness.

Recreating the mysterious atmosphere of gothic novels, Ann Demeulemeester left the audience suspended in a subtle dynamics of wonder and tension, while a language of delicate movements whispered words of fabric in their attentive ears. Wrapped in fine translucent silks, kaleidoscopic larvaes and butterfly-women flied on the ground, wearing at their feet aerodynamic shoes, lighten by an unexpected hole in the curved wedge. With extreme elegance, thick leather armor tried to cage soft crinkling dresses through their countless belts, reproducing the hybrid bone structure of the tiny winged insect. The dramatic train of the oversize sleeves was perfectly balanced by the clean razor-sharp tailoring, in a romantic duality between fragility and structure.

The charm of the ephemeral and elusive creatures vanished in a fleeting blink. The silence brought the marvellous dance of the opalescent wings to a serene end, leaving only a cryptic thrill that longly pinched the strings of the spectators’ soul, dazed and enchanted by the sublime spectacle.