Raf Simons Closing Namesake Brand

[Pastry]

does this mean the most epic sample sale ever during antwerp's famous sample sale season? some lucky sob might get their hands on 1990's raf simons.

also wondering about his studio on that small street in antwerp. it's kind of a cool little building. what will the new owner make of it..

 

[RaisinBoy]

It was so great in the first 10 years.
Amazing he kept it this long
Congrats!

 

[RosesAreRed]

I really do not understand why it happened as the brand was doing ok in terms of the orders

 

[tricotineacetat]

I feel like Raf Simons the brand has for the last 10 years merely existed as a means from which he could do his past and ongoing collaboration gigs, namely Fred Perry, Eastpak, Kvadrat and most importantly, Adidas, whose success he tried to replicate with a sneaker line of his own when the Adidas contract came to an end.

The ready-to-wear part of his line has (besides the demand on his archival collections) been rather small if I look at what stores were ordering, as hardly any shops carried key pieces from the runway. Besides that, I believe the Raf Simons brand lacked commercial backbone, as most other menswear designers with a cult following had - Rick Owens has his shoes and jerseys, Hedi Slimane has his boots and tailoring, but with Raf Simons, I feel an identifiable item that stands emblematic for the brand and that customers keep coming back for was always missing.

Given the rather low quality of his fabrics and production often outsourced to Eastern Europe, I think the collection was marketed too high besides Raf Simons' industry standing - He should have been closer aligned to Dries Van Noten's prices, which would have given him a clear niche besides the much higher prices of Celine and Rick Owens.

 

[donyan]

^^^ If by "dying", you mean the plague of creative-bankruptcy— absolutely. If you mean these blue-chip brands are dying because they're in the red, financially? Absolutely not. Pricetags are so ridiculously, offensively inflated for what are essentially outlet merch, relentlessly churned out to such disgusting excess to meet the ever-increasing profit demands of these companies. The bright light to all this blatant corporate greed isn’t to give up on the industry, it’s to be a smart and educated consumer; to not be easily led by “influencers”and celebs— the charlatans/hustlers of these corporate brands. Think for yourself. There’s still great fashion to be had: Vintage, upcycling, secondhand, deadstock, Lemaire’s Uniqlo… Still excited to searching out older Prada offerings. There’s still enough good fashion to make it all worthwhile for the discerning consumer, even in these unworthy fashion times. And for the professional creative, these are the days that will either shape one into a resilient, versatile and flexible survivor to weather these times, and don’t take things personally (like @Mutterlein, who despite having Haider sitting on her coat, seems to still recognize his talent and support him as a designer)— or one realizes the industry isn’t for them after all, and make for the countryside and open up a pottery studio.

such a good evaluation of what Fashion has become @Phuel. What makes me most sad is the death of independent designers. I first started being interested in fashion because of all these exciting new designers- Demeulemeester, Margiela, Vandevorst, Chalayan, McQueen, all designers that felt new, that were talking about me and to me. I never actually thought I would one day be interested in Dior or Balenciaga.. these were for "old" people. I miss the idea of 'Designers' as opposed to 'Brands'. I want a new wave of Designers that really don't care about what was before, that have original and personal voices, that make me want to go out to a store and try things on, discover clothes that are emotional and that make me want to have something so bad I am ready to eat yoghurt for a month just to be able to afford it. I'm getting less and less interested in Fashion simply because it is not that interesting anymore. I still buy clothes from the few Designers I like (and I pray to god they'll survive) but as to where Fashion is heading at the moment I don't see myself being that interested anymore

 

[Drusilla_]

^at this point, we'd be better off picking up issues of Vogue or i-D (depending on which end of the taste spectrum is yours) from 2004-10 and putting alerts on ebay or therealreal for things we liked from those pages before the next trend cycle drives up the prices of those too.

 

[tboy34]

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.

I have to agree! I never liked his work. I really disliked him at Dior. He was also really bad at Calvin Klein too.

 

[RaisinBoy]

Raf is going to Loewe! JW Anderson to Gucci, and Daniel Lee is getting fired from Burberry. 2023 in a nutshell.

 

[LadyJunon]

Raf is going to Loewe! JW Anderson to Gucci, and Daniel Lee is getting fired from Burberry. 2023 in a nutshell.

Don't forget Demna leaving Balenciaga.