At Jil Sander, Raf Simons Raises the Volume
By CATHY HORYN
September 25, 2010, 12:00 PM
MILAN — Mention the word “couture,” and people usually think of serious clothes with draping and embellishment. They don’t necessarily think of couture’s extreme forms — and that’s what Raf Simons gave Jil Sander this afternoon in a collection that will probably change some thinking about spring.
Mr. Simons has shown some exceptional collections at Jil in the past five years, but in this one he dealt more assuredly with the fundamentals of fashion — shape, volume, proportion, new materials — and pushed past the old frontiers to create a new example of minimalist dressing.
You can understand what would spur Mr. Simons to rethink Jil’s minimalist position, now that everybody seems to be a minimalist and puts out perfectly nice clothes that, in the end, don’t really do much to advance the style. In some cases, these clothes may be only a modest step up from a typical pre-season collection.
Giuseppe Aresu/Associated Press
Raf Simons for Jil Sander.
So here is Mr. Simons, returning to color at Jil Sander, but a very specific palette of shocking pink, deep purple, Day-Glo orange and yellow, vibrant Kelly green, and electric blue. Skirt lengths are emphatically long — no tepid midi length. And the volumes and sack shapes will recall some of the classic shapes of haute couture — from early Saint Laurent and Givenchy — among them, columns that now float away from the body yet have a sense of control, strapless tops with a peplum, and ultra-wide trousers.
Despite the volumes, the clothes are manifestly streamlined and comfortable looking. With a number of the long skirts — some gathered at the waist with a sash tie to create a soft frill — Mr. Simons showed a basic white T-shirt or a tank top. Sometimes there was a cardigan or twinset with the front edge coated in neon yellow. He had wide stripes, including vertical ones, and full-blown floral prints in a blue base, just as he did in his Sander’s men’s collection in June. (He used wide stripes in his fall Raf Simons’s collection, as well, in pine green and navy.) There were also windbreakers and a full-length parka — again, with a couture influence.
Mr. Simons has done extreme volumes at different times in his own men’s label, and of course, the notion of pairing a T-shirt or cardigan with a long, full skirt in a techno taffeta brings to mind an American look — Blass, Halston, Anne Klein.
But I think you will find that the elements here are bolder, done with consideration of the street (there are no elaborate underpinnings, after all), and certainly looking ahead.
Reaction to the show seemed very enthusiastic, with an immediate burst of applause at the end. The music for the show was the soundtrack from “Psycho” and Busta Rhymes.