A deep dive into the history of Raf Simons before his LFW debut

CHAPTER ONE: A YOUTH MANIFESTO 

If you had happened to be around the Witzli-Poetzli café in Antwerp in the early 1990’s, you would have probably stumbled upon Raf Simons. At that time a young industrial design graduate, busy discussing with his friends and future collaborators Olivier Rizzo and Willy Vanderperre, the “freshness of Belgian fashion” – as he nostalgically refers to it in an interview with Alexander Fury – and the revolutionary approach of Martin Margiela. It is to the latter, Belgian like him, and to his most memorable fashion presentation, the white show in the autumn of 1989, that the designer owes his rapid and quite fortunate career change. At the time, Simons was interning at the office of fashion designer and original member of the Antwerp Six Walter Van Beirendonck, when he was exposed to the cathartic fashion show of Margiela. From that revelatory moment, Simons matured the decision to divert to fashion design and with a TV and a fax machine as the only connections to the industry founded his menswear label at the age of 27.

The designer had clear in mind the direction of the brand, which, since its video presentations and Parisian debut, has encapsulated in severe tailoring and sombre silhouettes a juvenile tumultuous spirit. Drawing fully from post-punk British culture, for his FW 1995 and SS 1996  the designer portrayed the youths in school uniforms inspired sets, striped knitted jumpers and tight outfits à la David Bowie – who also had his own cameo on the “Aladdin Sane” printed t-shirts of the collection.

FW 1996  “We Only Come Out at Night” looks like an account of the late night hours of a weekend off: a gothic tale of skinny suits and dark knitwear unfolds in the amateur video, while a bunch of young people – with no doubt Raf’s friends – hang out in a candle lit house, between horror movies, ouija boards and a quasi-infinite number of cigarettes. The black suit with narrow shoulders and clingy trousers of his first collections soon turned out to represent a veritable uniform: a symbol of rebellion, rather than rigour (and yet impeccably tailored) and a code to identify a boys’ cult. With Alexander Fury’s words: “while [the skinny suit] owed a debt to Helmut Lang […] the youth was all Simons’s”.

The designer’s imagery of teen angst and insubordination escalated, in his FW 2001 and SS 2002 collections “Riot, Riot, Riot” and “Woe unto Those Who Spit on the Fear Generation… The Wind Will Blow it Back”, into a provoking commentary on contemporary times. Torches were lifted by the models of SS 2002 show, as they walked around a Parisian high school, wearing scarves to hide and protect their faces, and loose white outfits with slogans like “Be Pure, Be Vigilant, Behave”. The audience taking part in the show was transported into a state of urban guerrilla and terror; an ominous presage of the 09/11 attacks that occurred later that year.

New millennium malaise aside, the outbursts of disruptive youth anger represent for Simons a physiological process to get rid of the old and make space for the new. As he affirms in his documentary “Dior and I”: “It’s not the past that is romantic, but the future”. The fascination for the future will take on a new meaning during his tenure at Dior where it will be paired with his observance of the Maison’s heritage. It also stands as a powerful metaphor for the generational turnover in the fashion industry, of which Simons has always been a fervent believer. In his interview with Fury, he encouraged young designers “not to be afraid to kick ass” as “[even] Martin and Rei kicked out Mugler, Gaultier and all the others.”

But it’s in the dialectical tension originated by his past references and futuristic scenarios, that Raf Simons finds space for creation. After all, he confesses to the journalist: “I might become more and more stimulated and emotionally fulfilled, or just happy, thinking about things I’ve known since a long time”. Hence the “Blade Runner” inspired show for SS 2018 with its never-so-contemporary, straight from the 80’s sci-fi/punk-ish looks. For the second time (the first being FW 2003) Simons adds to the collection Peter Saville’s artworks for the albums of  Joy Division and New Order. Fashion does a full circle and then starts again: this time the “Unknown Pleasures” printed hoodie was worn half torn to show the vest underneath, adorned with the beautifully painted flowers of “Power, Corruption & Lies”. It’s the quotation of a quotation; a moment of meta-fashion that refabricates past references into modern styles.

CHAPTER TWO: A NEW TAKE ON MASCULINITY

Well before Hedi Slimane’s skeletal looks at Dior Homme, the skinny black suit of Raf Simons dominated menswear in the early 2000s. The style, characterised by full sartorial control in the shape of tight, bottomed-up shirts, slim-fit pants and jackets, was obsessively reproduced in his collections, with little to no difference between the looks. With a robotic parade of models, with jet-black sleek hair and red lipstick, and dressed in bright crimson shirts and slim black ties, FW 1998 “Radioactivity” paid tribute to the German electronic synth band Kraftwerk and their cover album “The Man-Machine”.

The style of the uniform, as a serial repetition of a look and as a subcultural hallmark, underpinned the SS 1999 show “Black Palms”: sixty male models, mainly skaters and boys who had replied to the casting announcement on the radio, walked down the runway with variations of a black ensemble. From the famous overture with five shirtless models – one of whom sporting on his back the shadow of two palms – to the oversized meshed knitwear and keffiyehs loosely wrapped around their necks.

The fragile bodies of the models, exposed by sheer fabrics and unbuttoned jackets that frame their naked torsos, clash with the structural rigidity of Simon’s tailoring, compromising their masculinity.  The young men look delicate, almost feminine. In the designer’s abundant quotation of pop music, epitomised in the persona of David Bowie – not even a Dior couture show, like the SS 2015, could be spared from an effigy of Ziggy Stardust in a sequined striped jumpsuit – the hints of gender indeterminacy become more apparent. Youth and gender identity collide in “The Fourth Sex”, an exposition about “adolescents extremes” curated by Raf Simons and Francesco Bonami, which took place at Pitti Uomo in 2003 and was condensed in the eponymous book. From the editorials of W magazine, to the Tiananmen Square massacre, Bonami and Simons explore in an extensive visual and written essay the fluidity of the young age and the turbulent metamorphosis into adulthood.

CHAPTER THREE: FASHIONING THE INTERZONES

Throughout the years, Raf Simons’s imagery has widened like a finely interconnected cobweb of citations and connections with the art industry. Music (we have already mentioned the tributes to David Bowie and Kraftwerk) has shaped and accompanied the collections of Raf Simons and those of the brands under his tenure. The post-punk references of his first years culminated in his iconographic collaboration with Peter Saville: in his FW 2003 show, hoodies, t-shirts and parka coats featured the iconic album covers of English rock bands Joy Division and New Order, ideated by the graphic designer. Simons’s debt to these cultural milestones of British culture went well beyond the sartorial codes he borrowed to represent his gloomy youth. The designer’s exploration of fashion’s borders, and the way it can interact with other disciplines such as art, cinema and music, have been named, after Joy Division’s song, “Interzone”.

While the SS 2018 show was permeated by the cyberpunk-apocalyptic mood of the 1982 cult movie “Blade Runner”, theSS 2019 show of the Calvin Klein high-end line was brimming with references to Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws” and the coming-of-age comedy “The Graduate”. From the thriller’s posters printed on the t-shirts, and shark-chewed pleated skirts, to mortarboard caps, capes and Mrs Robinson-esque animalier dresses, Simons used Hollywood tropes to reinterpret, between dream and disillusion, the complexity of American youth. In his YouTube channel, Fashion journalist Odunayo Ojo analyses, season by season, Raf Simons’s time as chief creative officer of CK205W39NYC. During his short tenure from 2016 to 2018, observes Ojo, the designer has dutifully portrayed American society through archetypes like quilted parkas and cowboy boots, and collaborations with exponents of the contemporary and pop art scene made in the USA. In the SS 2018 CK collection, “Easy Rider” motifs mingle with the photos printed on the garments of electric chairs and car crashes from Warhol’s series “Death and Disaster”, following an “unprecedented access to Andy Warhol’s archive” by the creative officer.

Raf Simons is, after all, a sucker for art: while he is a passionate collector of the work of Sterling Ruby, he also collaborated with the artist for many seasons. The FW 2014 show, lovechild of the fashion-art duo, combined the designer’s signature silhouettes with the chaotic spectacle of the LA-based artist. The result was a smorgasbord of collages, patches and spurts of paint that enriched the dark-coloured collection, endowing it with a DIY, crafty aesthetic. Prêt-à-porter or couture, it makes no difference: for his first show at Dior, the atelier entered a state of frenzy at the request of turning the artist spray-painted canvases into silk strapless gowns.

Throughout his work, Simons has exploited every inch of those interstitial spaces between fashion and art, most of the time in the form of quotation. The Jil Sander SS 2012, to name one,  paid homage to Pablo Picasso’s ceramics, with the cubist faces of his flasks and vases adorning the knitted tops and sweaters of the collection. Bold colours, sharp lines and a romantic idea of the future, typical of modernist artists, characterised the Raf Simons SS 2014 and its synthetic print tops with playful graphics and advertising slogans. In case the visual references hadn’t been clear enough, the kinetic art of mid-century sculptor Alexander Calder exhibited in the show location would have done the rest.

And from modernism all the way back to mediaeval art, with the inspiration for the Raf Simons FW 2022 coming from the 1595 painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder “Netherlandish Proverbs”. The exact replica of the blue cape worn by a hunched-back little guy in the middle of the folkloric scene opens the show and gives way to a parade of funny-shaped, furry hats, created in partnership with milliner Stephen Jones, and full-length latex gowns. Carnivalesque mediaeval characters and kinky aesthetics find an oddly satisfying compromise on the runway. For the designer, art is a door to the unexpected, a middle to experiment with colour, texture and shape, keeping concept and functionality as main goals. After more than 25 years in the industry, Raf Simons is still an industrial design graduate at heart.

CHAPTER FOUR: “TO BE A CUSTODIAN”: RAF SIMONS’S CREATIVE DIRECTIONS 

It’s 2005 when German designer and minimalism trailblazer Jil Sander storms out of the Prada Group offices, leaving Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli, her husband and CEO of the company, to the arduous task of finding a new creative director for the brand. The plan was to appoint a designer who could preserve the sombre image of Jil Sander and master sharp cuts and austere silhouettes just like its founder used to. The decision to put Raf Simons at the head of the brand was taken despite, or better, because of the designer’s lack of experience with womenswear (after all, Jil Sander despised skirts and heels), compensated by his matchless tailoring. The newly appointed creative director, on the other hand, must have felt at ease with the brand’s minimalist codes, which had been first pioneered by his favourite designer, also part of the Prada Group at the time, the Austrian Helmut Lang. As he mentioned in the interview: “If I had had money at the time, nothing would have existed except for Helmut Lang.”

La Signora and her husband Bertelli had a great second intuition with Simons (Hedi Slimane was the initial candidate for the job), so much so they would call him 15 years later for the co-creative direction of Prada. What started as a loyal take on the label’s heritage, was soon remixed by Raf Simons, with bold colour blocking and new sculptural shapes, into a new exciting project. The epithet “minimalist designer” has always been rejected by the creative director: “The fact that I worked for a minimal brand doesn’t necessarily make me a minimalist” he says in his documentary. And his collections for the brand, from 2005 to 2012, leave no doubt: with cut-outs and fringes winking at the birth of modernism in the French avant-garde, the SS 2009 took a sexy-like, Miranda Kerr at the 2009 Met Gala kind of twist from the label’s uptight look, while SS 2011, FW 2011 and SS 2012 gave the neutral palette and stiff tailoring the coup de grace. The SS 2011 inaugurated the “couture trilogy” as the designer would name it, with trompe l’oeil gowns that looked like white t-shirts (couldn’t get more minimalist than that) tucked in floor-length vivid pink, orange and green peplum skirts and pants. For the following season, inspired by vintage editorial photographs of Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Simons continued, with darker hues and strokes of neon blue, his exercise of couture silhouettes, and would set the tone for his imminent debut at Dior.

The picture of Raf Simons, visibly emotional in front of the ovation from his audience at FW 2012 Jil Sander show, marked the farewell to the house he had brilliantly led for seven years. Anyway, his following tenure wouldn’t lack teary moments for the designer and his new team at Dior. The vicissitudes of his first 8 weeks at the Parisian atelier were discretely narrated in the documentary “Dior and I”, where Simons was able to overcome his camera shyness, and be filmed while designing, together with his assistant Pieter Mulier, his first couture collection. The stress of a tight deadline, the sense of responsibility he felt towards a “gigantic” and “sublime” legacy, as he would himself define it, and the expectations of the industry weighing on his shoulders, culminated in quiet crying on a Parisian rooftop minutes before the show. McQueen had passed away two years earlier;  John Galliano, Simons’s predecessor, had just been dismissed from his role at Christian Dior. If there is one thing “The fall of Gods and Kings” has taught the fashion crowd, is how the epithet of creative genius has failed to comprehend a fragile and humanly flawed nature. There is no need for these extremes though: Raf’s gentle manners, his nervousness prior to the show, his occasional weeping – nothing that a Coke Zero and a cigarette wouldn’t fix – make his totally unrelatable life relatable for just one moment; we sympathise for him.

After the abrupt closure with John Galliano, the appointment of a designer who shied away from the flash of the camera resonated well with LVMH’s low-profile line. A good catch, also considering Raf Simons’s passionate commitment to the art world, in an era when cultural capital was becoming a prerogative of luxury brands. However, from his very first show, Raf – that’s how he wanted to be called at the atelier- astounded his star-studded audience (from Azzedine Alaïa to Marc Jacobs, everyone was there), proving to be more than worthy of his new role. The creative director dived deep into Dior’s archive and reimagined for a contemporary customer, the hyperfeminine hourglass silhouettes of gowns and bar jackets. Experiments with New Look-inspired waisted shapes and conservative outfits lightened-up by contrasting colour combinations, became more and more daring and independent from their originals, as Simons was finding his own voice in the brand’s narration. Warhol’s sketches were the recurring motif of the Ready-to-Wear FW 2013, which explored the artistic sensitivity shared by the two designers, namely Simons and Monsieur Dior. Futuristic visions, condensed in the profusion of synthetic materials, and pop references sprinkled his shows – one above all, the SS 2015 Couture quoting David Bowie’s style. While these are indicative of Simon’s more relaxed attitude towards the brand’s past, the designer has never hidden the reverential respect and lack of creative freedom that came together with the role. When Fury asks him if he ever felt like a “custodian” of the maisons he worked for, he says: “These brands will exist forever, no matter who’s there. […] I am interested in the core of fashion, in the ‘creating of garments’ and how that relates to a big or small audience. And I think that most of the big brands by now are driven by marketing”.

The interview is dated 28 January 2020, it seems reasonable the designer was hinting at his short time as chief creative officer of Calvin Klein. Called by the PVH corporation in 2016 for a major rebranding mission, Simons took the task to the letter, from the design of the new logo with Peter Saville, to the collections, designed with the creative director Pieter Mulier, of the new line Calvin Klein 205W39NYC. For three years Simons and Mulier, worked on American tropes, archetypes and uniforms to portray the US youths. In a few seasons’ time, the design duo fabricated a highly desirable array of American clichés: fireproof sets and coats, straight from the costumes of a firefighter TV show, varsity jackets encapsulating the college football craze, and western shirts.  Despite the clear references used by the two designers, PVH board bluntly stated that the abstractedness of Simon’s vision made the products unappealing in mainstream fashion and unaffordable, in terms of both price and taste, to the Calvin Klein’s customers; hence the decision of parting ways.

If there is somebody who could appreciate Simons’s cerebral work, that is Miuccia Prada, who, again together with her husband Patrizio Bertelli, a big fan of the designer from the Jil Sander years, offered him the co-creative direction of her namesake brand. Simons liked Prada, and not just the clothes – an integral part of the designer’s wardrobe – but her way of thinking too. As he said in an interview in System Magazine, when the Prada-Simons affair wasn’t even a thing: “Miuccia has a mindset I can relate to”. From the first shows, the co-creative directors have been reworking the codes of the new Prada, joining forces in distilling two visions in one creative dialogue.

And just like that, the models of SS 2021 hold the lapels of their coats and shawls as they walk around the screens and cameras of a pale-yellow room of Fondazione Prada. A reference to Simons’s last show for Jil Sander? Or a tribute to Miuccia’s own sartorial gesture – like clutching a protective blanket, during public appearances? Cross-references to their works are featured throughout the collections: for SS 2021 black graphics and writings are printed onto large white hoodies and pleated skirts; an accurate replica of the Raf Simons SS 2002 looks, while the mundanity of work-wear and sombre fashion, a constant of Prada’s language, were the foundation of FW 2022. The suits of the menswear SS 2023 show, stripped off of the frills and alternated by thighs-revealing lederhosen, channel a masculinity, whose parenthood might still be a subject of debate. As Miuccia declared during the Q&A at the end of their first show: “It’s a beginning”.