Belgian designer Ann Demeulemeester, one of the original Antwerp Six, today announced that she would be stepping back from her namesake label and leaving the work there to her team.

In a pdf send-out of a handwritten note, she said, 'a new time is coming both for my personal life and the brand Ann Demeulemeester.'

Demeulemeester, 53, opened her label in 1985, working with her husband out of Belgium. But her big break came when, in 1986, she joined a cavalcade of other designers from the city (including Dries van Noten and Walter van Bierendonck) and showed at London Fashion Week. Her darkly elegant designs, mostly edgily cut black tailoring, often embellished with a single feather or flash of bright crimson, has become the go-to uniform for the likes of Patti Smith and Courtney Love, as well as attracting an almost cult-like of absolutist fans over the years.

'Black is perfect, you can fill it with any emotion,' she told me in 2011. 'My work has always been about authentic feeling, and I think we live in a time where we need that.'

She also confirmed the brand would conitnue to grow without her, and would show both mens- and womenswear at the upcoming collection in Paris next year.