Ann Verhelst (born 29 December 1959), known professionally as Ann Demeulemeester, is a Belgian fashion designer whose label, Ann Demeulemeester, is mainly showcased at the annual Paris Fashion Week. She is known as one of the Antwerp Six in the fashion industry. Early life Ann Verhelst was born in Kortrijk in 1959 to Albert and Monique Verhelst-Pappijn, and later lived in the city of Bruges. The reason why she made the decision to change her real name "Verhelst" to "Demeulemeester" remains unknown. Initially, Verhelst showed no interest in fashion. She attended art school for three years, where she discovered her fascination with people and portraiture, which led her to begin thinking about clothing design. From this, she went on to study fashion design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp from 1978 to 1981. In 1986, Verhelst, along with fellow graduates from the Antwerp Royal Academy, decided to showcase her collection in London. Though, as she was pregnant at the time and unable to make the trip to London, she only displayed a selection of sunglasses. This group of Belgian designers will soon be known as the 'Antwerp Six', a radical and distinctive Belgian group of designers of the 1980s to whom Verhelst has been associated, almost by mistake, but will forever be linked to. This group of avant-garde designers are known for their deconstructivist styles of creating untraditional clothing lines. Other notables from the group include Dries van Noten and Walter Van Beirendonck. Career Late beginnings Verhelst graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 1981,. A year after her graduation, she won the Gouden Spoel, a Belgian awarded prize to the year's most promising fashion designer, though the impact of the award in the industry was very limited. Verhelst struggled to find a first job and began working as a freelance pattern maker, assisting fashion icon Martin Margiela , for an undisclosed Italian coat brand for a few years. Ann Demeulemeester In 1985, Verhelst finally launched her own brand, Ann Demeulemeester-Verhelst, in collaboration with her husband, Patrick Robyn, who put an end to a burgeoning career as a photographer to devote himself to his wife's fashion label, assuming the role of a shadow creative director for the brand, an unofficial position that he has still been occupying to this days. In 1996, she debuted her own menswear line. She opened her first store in Antwerp