Raf Simons Closing Namesake Brand

[Marc10]

 

[GivenchyAddict]

Oh so he will be fully dedicated to ruining Prada…

 

[YohjiAddict]

Thanks god he found a lifesaver before he had to go down with his ship…

 

[jeanclaude]

(pinimg.com)

Bye Felicia!!

 

[bc collector]

Yet, as much as I've grown cold toward his recent work, I respect Raf for taking this decision, in a way it was long overdue. The brand RS stopped having a creative spark eons ago and there are not so many designers out there who would have the same dignity and intellectual honesty to acknowledge the end of a cycle.
Regardless of the financial results of his work, I wish Hedi had the same courage.

 

[Deleted member 7575]

Oh so he will be fully dedicated to ruining Prada…

I'm inundated with so many ***-kissing reactions on Instagram.

This is the most accurate and truthful reaction I've read so far.

 

[Lola701]

Nobody is going to miss this brand tbh. He had a good ride but he lost it for me…

I don’t think women outside of those of the London scene cares about his clothes and I don’t think the fake halo of hype his brand had, thanks to the Hip-Hop community, was sustainable.

My men friends, who introduced me to his brand and his work have stopped buying his stuff years ago...Which is something totally unheard of for a designer of a his supposed stature. And for me that’s all I need to know.

 

[GivenchyAddict]

I'm inundated with so many ***-kissing reactions on Instagram.

This is the most accurate and truthful reaction I've read so far.

haha thank you! I am tired of fashion people pretending that Raf is an important designer. He is not. His last show was more filled with some fashion students and die-hards fans than anyone working in fashion.

He had cute moments at Jil Sander, nothing that interesting at Dior and a complete disaster at Prada. I want him completely gone.

 

[THD96]

He had cute moments at Jil Sander, nothing that interesting at Dior, and a complete disaster at Prada. I want him completely gone

And completely eradicate Calvin Klein in less than 3 years.

It's good that he knows that he needs to stop, but frankly, he should stop 5 years ago.
His obsession with youth culture is what essentially kills the aura of his brand. Instead of designing for his mature clients, he keeps sending down try-hard oversized clothes for "cool kids" but the kids never care for him.
I keep hoping for him to present something sleek, modern, and mature like his JS days but he never delivered.

I'm usually sad when an independent designer closes their brand but with Raf, it's just inevitable.

 

[Lola701]

Yet, as much as I've grown cold toward his recent work, I respect Raf for taking this decision, in a way it was long overdue. The brand RS stopped having a creative spark eons ago and there are not so many designers out there who would have the same dignity and intellectual honesty to acknowledge the end of a cycle.
Regardless of the financial results of his work, I wish Hedi had the same courage.

For better or for worse, Hedi has a following. There are women who loves his approach to fashion and there are men who buys his clothes. I know some men who don’t work in fashion and who started wearing Hedi’s clothes when he was at Dior and followed him throughout his career.

For me, that’s the testament of his relevance and of his status in fashion. It’s obvious that there isn’t the same relationship with Raf and his following.

 

[bc collector]

For better or for worse, Hedi has a following

I don't doubt that, in fact there was a premise to my reasoning.
I do not care one bit if Hedi has a following, as I did not care about Virgil's, to name another one. A fashion designer's work has to stand on its own legs, in terms of design, regardless of the commercial response.
And Hedi's output post DH has the same creative relevance of Zara, as far as I'm concerned.

Plus, I would argue that Raf's work in menswear never had the same general public resonance, not even in its heyday. He's always been quintessentially a designer for the fashion insiders' clique, and a shy guy, whose public exposure only increased during his tenure at Dior.

But we all know who first experimented with slim suiting, don't we?

 

[Beun]

Does anyone know why he is stopping now?

 

[Kimihiro]

On a mission to destroy Prada full time. About time, I don’t see a point in his brand anymore, not like he or his house dictated people’s sartorial choices, being actually worn, or did they continually produce groundbreaking works. Any of those would be raison d’être but alas not. That’s why yes, d*** riding on this closure confuses me.

 

[Norden]

I was one of those long time buyers of Raf Simons and his Jil Sander. Like many of my friends we grew older, and Raf's supersized weird shapes we're just not appealing anymore. Also his price point was so inflated over the last 6 collections that it was simply not worth it to buy.

A lot of stores stopped carrying his clothes and his collab with Adidas ended. I think its a stacking of a lot of issues. But in the end its very simple, the clothes where not good enough.

I think Hedi has a muuuuuch stronger base and takes his clients more seriously. And he lacks the DNA of say a Rick Owens to have a truly legendary status that transcends fashion.

The tragedy is, he stopped too late, his status is tarnished by his lacklustre CK and flaccid performance at Prada.
His strength is textile and furniture, I hope he expands his collaboration with Kvadrat (Its really fabulous what he does there)

 

[GivenchyHomme]

I’m dreading the future of Prada. I’ve been praying that we would see something similar to his version of Jil Sander, yet every season he disappoints. Maybe he’ll do better on his own without Miuccia? I guess time will tell.

 

[Lola701]

I don't doubt that, in fact there was a premise to my reasoning.
I do not care one bit if Hedi has a following, as I did not care about Virgil's, to name another one. A fashion designer's work has to stand on its own legs, in terms of design, regardless of the commercial response.
And Hedi's output post DH has the same creative relevance of Zara, as far as I'm concerned.

Plus, I would argue that Raf's work in menswear never had the same general public resonance, not even in its heyday. He's always been quintessentially a designer for the fashion insiders' clique, and a shy guy, whose public exposure only increased during his tenure at Dior.

But we all know who first experimented with slim suiting, don't we?

You know I subscribe totally to everything you said in the first part regarding creative relevance. I’ve been critical for a longtime of Hedi’s laziness but I think for people at their caliber the following kinda counts…Even more in menswear.

I don’t like Raf’s womenswear as much as I don’t like Hedi’s womenswear…But that didn’t prevent me from buying a Dior bar suite by Raf or a YSL dress by Hedi.

I was really disappointed by what the Raf Simons brand became tbh.

But what I think was rather surprising for me was that there was some sort of evolution in his work for other brands but that evolution didn’t have a positive impact on his menswear or on his own brand as a whole. There was a consistency during his JS years and his own brand. His menswear during the Dior years was at the peak of the hype…And while his CK looked more Helmut Lang than Calvin, it was interesting that the proposition didn’t have an impact on his own brand. I think that a lot of people would have subscribed to that vision and it could have placed him above the others, leading the pack or at least following his own path.

I think that Raf Simons as a brand could have been as iconic as Thom Browne, Rick Owens or Tom Ford as brands that has a very strong identity in menswear…

 

[disco54]

He is going to run Prada to the ground faster now

 

[Phuel]

You know I subscribe totally to everything you said in the first part regarding creative relevance. I’ve been critical for a longtime of Hedi’s laziness but I think for people at their caliber the following kinda counts…Even more in menswear.

I don’t like Raf’s womenswear as much as I don’t like Hedi’s womenswear…But that didn’t prevent me from buying a Dior bar suite by Raf or a YSL dress by Hedi.

I was really disappointed by what the Raf Simons brand became tbh.

But what I think was rather surprising for me was that there was some sort of evolution in his work for other brands but that evolution didn’t have a positive impact on his menswear or on his own brand as a whole. There was a consistency during his JS years and his own brand. His menswear during the Dior years was at the peak of the hype…And while his CK looked more Helmut Lang than Calvin, it was interesting that the proposition didn’t have an impact on his own brand. I think that a lot of people would have subscribed to that vision and it could have placed him above the others, leading the pack or at least following his own path.

I think that Raf Simons as a brand could have been as iconic as Thom Browne, Rick Owens or Tom Ford as brands that has a very strong identity in menswear…

Raf’s menswear’s influence became irrelevant by 2010; he was never going to be able to generate the impact that the likes of Thom and Tom would. I’ve never liked him enough o wear his designs — and I liked his design vision for Dior and Calvin Klein. HIs own label became more and more insufferable, desperate and simply out of touch with all the young men that so coveted his brand of stark and severe minimalism back in the mid-2000s when they were young. They grew up, while his namesake label was stuck in this awkward and faux "rebellious youth” fashion purgatory that revealed more of an aging, wealthy designer pining for his Berlin youth. It all resulted in such a ridiculously, desperately clinging to some struggling, impoverish youth design vision that nobody is dumb enough the suckered into paying for— and it is the reason why rappers that have become wealthy in their middle-age don’t come out performing like they’re still 21yo, angry at the world with nothing to lose: Because they’ve made it. Raf didn’t seem to get that while his customer did.

And that’s very different from Hedi. Stripped of his obsession with the heavy stylings of youth cultures, his separates are impressively versatile for both young and older. Like Nicolas, Hedi understands the fashion times they're working and living in and design accordingly; Both men are masters at reading the room. Their former, glorious take on fashion wouldn’t work, and would be wasted, in these lesser fashion days-- at least not to such high impacts as they’ve forged with such relevance for the current times. You know, sometimes you simply have to reign back your creative force of will in order to not just survive the times, but to reign over the times.

 

[bc collector]

And that’s very different from Hedi. Stripped of his obsession with the heavy stylings of youth cultures, his separates are impressively versatile for both young and older. Like Nicolas, Hedi understands the fashion times they're working and living in and design accordingly; Both men are masters at reading the room.

Again, and for the last time: I am fully aware that Hedi is an excellent product-oriented designer and that pays off commercially, obviously.
The fact is, without what you call "his obsession...with youth cultures" there would be no Hedi at all: it's not like it's just a peripheral detail of his work, it's the very core of it. And despite Hedi's undisputed ability to package his product masterfully, at the end of the day it still is Zara, well made but Zara.
One thing that nobody acknowledged so far: it is undeniable that Raf's clothes never had the same quality standard of Hedi's, on the other hand he never had the infrastructure of a big conglomerate behind him. Also, up until a certain point, his collections were very price-points conscious, and managed to cater to different pockets with designs that always maintained something interesting to them.

Raf’s menswear’s influence became irrelevant by 2010

That's questionable. To me his downward path started after the Sterling Ruby collection, when he embarked on the oversize trend that everybody else was following (even though, come think of it, on that aspect too he was a forerunner).

 

[LadyJunon]

It hurts a bit to see Raf close shop, mostly because he, Ghesquiére and Elbaz were the ones who introduced me to high fashion.

Honestly his problem is that he didn't grow up. He was so firmly stuck in his youth culture phase that he alienated the customer group that had grown out of that aesthetic. Those men he was serving back in the 00s now have stable jobs, mariages and children and the youth of today have other brands to go to.

His tenures at Jil Sander and Dior prove that he's more than capable of designing modern, beautiful, grown-up clothing, but that never translated to his label nor did it to Calvin Klein or Prada.

If Raf hopes for any chance of longevity at Prada, he is really going to need embrace creating grown-up clothing and accessories for working adults with money. I doubt that will ever happen, because while I believe he is very capable of doing that, but he doesn't seem capable of taking criticism.

Also let's be honest, this is where Demna will end up in 15 years.