LONDON — Belgian fashion designer Raf Simons revealed on Instagram on Monday that he will be closing his own label after “an extraordinary journey of 27 years”.
The spring 2023 show presented during Frieze London last month will be the designer’s last collection for his own label.
“Words fail me to share how proud I am of all we have accomplished. I am grateful for the incredible support from my team, my partners, the press and buyers, my friends and family, and our devoted fans and loyal supporters. Thank you all for believing in our vision and for believing in me,” said the designer.
Simons launched his eponymous label in 1995. The designer continued to grow his brand while working for major fashion houses, including Jil Sander, Dior, and Calvin Klein.
Pieces from Simons’ early years often fetch high prices on resale sites and during auctions. In 2020, she reissued some 100 pieces of her signature designs over the years, including the high-profile collaboration with Sterling Ruby.
Andrew Groves, director of the men’s fashion archive at the University of Westminster, said the moment he heard the news he immediately thought of the film “Control”, which is about the life of Ian Curtis, the English post singer of late 1970s. -punk band Joy Division.
“Not only is Joy Division so intertwined with Simons’ work, but this finishing move from Simons is surely all about control. After all, it’s been what’s driven his career for the last 27 years, it’s in his approach to design, presentation and communication,” Groves said.
“Her work for me has always embodied the turbulent emotions of adolescence, bubbling just below the surface but always under control. Where other designers have left their namesake brands, such as Helmut Lang and Martin Margiela, they have continued with varying degrees of success, and I can understand Simons’ wish that his brand not suffer the same fate,” he added.
Groves also suspects that there will be a second act. “Just as New Order grew out of the demise of Joy Division, I hope this is just a prelude to something else, something unusual and surprising,” he said.
An image from the Prada Spring 2021 digital show.
Courtesy of Prada
Simons will continue to work at Prada, where he was named the brand’s co-creative director in February 2020, working in partnership with Miuccia Prada “with equal responsibilities for creative input and decision-making,” the company said at the time. The first co-designed collection was presented digitally for Spring 2021 during Milan Fashion Week.
Simons’ hiring suggested that Prada and Patrizio Bertelli, co-chief executive of the Prada Group, were preparing a succession plan at the Italian fashion house. However, when she was asked if she was thinking of retiring at some point, the designer dismissed her suggestion.
Prada has described Simons’ contract with the house as “in theory, it’s forever.”
Prada is understood to be increasingly focused on Miu Miu, though not to Prada’s detriment. She is still involved in the design of both labels.
The designers’ association underscores the strong complicity between Simons and the Prada Group, which originally tapped him to become Jil Sander’s creative director in 2005, when the group owned that brand.
Simons and Prada have also enjoyed a long friendship.
They share a similar aesthetic based on modernism and occasionally futurism. They also share a passion for contemporary art and carry the torch for bold creative expression and the occasional provocation.
Raf Simons RTW Spring 2023
Yu Fujiwara/DMA
For her own spring 2023 collection, which was postponed from London Fashion Week to Frieze due to the national mourning for Queen Elizabeth II, Simons invited more than 1,000 guests. They met at Printworks, the cult party venue in Canada Water, south-east London, where Simons conjured up a Berghain-esque moment.
Guests gathered in the vast, cavernous venue around long black bars and drank beer and cocktails from paper cups. Right before the show started, those bars were transformed into a long catwalk.
The designer’s obsession with mega-shoulders and large proportions seems to be over. Instead, there were lots of clean lines, minimal tailored jackets and skirts paired with bright leggings in primary colors. She created a line of bodysuits for herself with fine fabrics, as light as lingerie or fresh cotton.
However, fans would still have recognized Spring 2023 as a Raf Simons show, albeit a more stripped down version.
Models walked the elevated runway in sleeveless coats in bright red or pale blue; the classic double-breasted coats that Simons makes every season; Fishnet T-shirts and cotton dresses and sleeveless tops with graffiti, the fruit of a collaboration with the estate of the late Belgian painter Philippe Vandenberg.
Raf Simons RTW Spring 2023
Yu Fujiwara/DMA
Born in remote Neerpelt, Belgium, Simons moved to Genk and earned a degree in furniture and industrial design in 1991. Drawn by the energy of the Antwerp Six, who put Belgium on the international fashion map, he went from fashion-forward furniture and launched a street-inspired menswear collection in 1995.
He began showing it in Paris two years later, and it quickly caused a sensation with its slim tailoring, street casting, and such towering catwalk venues as La Grande Arche de la Défense.
A favorite of critics and editors, prized for his exacting silhouettes and obsession with the here and now, Simons took over as creative director at Jil Sander in 2005, where his designs were critical, but not always commercial, success. In 2012, he was chosen to succeed John Galliano as Dior’s sixth couturier after the British designer’s anti-Semitic comments and subsequent downfall. Simons brought a burst of modernity to the house, ditching the retro-tinged glamor that Galliano had wielded during a stellar 15-year tenure. He frequently referenced iconic Dior designs like the Bar jacket, as well as floral motifs, but abstracted from them and indulged in his penchant for minimalism and futurism.
Haute couture looks from the Raf Simons Autumn-Winter 2012 collection photographed by Patrick Demarchelier.
patrick demarchelier
After leaving Dior in 2015, Simons joined Calvin Klein a year later, serving as creative director there for three years. He left the fashion label in December 2018 after tensions rose between him and PVH Corp., Calvin Klein’s parent company.
At the time, Emanuel Chirico, the chairman and chief executive officer of PVH Corp, said, in rather blunt terms on the company’s earnings call, that the reinvented Calvin Klein, under Simons’ helm, wasn’t working.
He said the collection, renamed 205W39NYC, needed to become more commercial and that investments in the collection and advertising would be shifted elsewhere. Sources indicated that Simons wreaked a lot of havoc on the company and overspent on everything.
A fall image from the 205W39NYC campaign.
willy vanderpeere
In November 2019, Simons made his first public appearance after leaving Calvin Klein at a fashion conference in Antwerp.
Simons, who also lives in the city, shared her thoughts on the state of the fashion system, the creativity and value behind a design, and the importance of staying independent and supporting the new generation, as well as her frustration and reflection. about his previous positions at Jil Sander and Dior.
While he didn’t mention Calvin Klein during his 35-minute chat, between the lines, his views seemed clear.
“These big brands are now largely driven by marketing and growth, and it’s rare for a designer to be good at both. I am definitely not good in all aspects,” he said.
Source: news.google.com