Raf Simons Mens S/S 05

[nqth]

 

[nqth]

 

[nqth]

 

[nqth]

 

[Scott]

Well,the first two images I do not like. Rather grotesque for Raf,non? I know he likes to capture the culture of youth but never would have I expected he'd do what's already been done a million times over....that hip-hop style is tedious.

I like his signature tailored pieces though,but I don't understand why he carried the scuba idea into this....doesn't seem to fit. All in all,very dismal.

 

[faust]

Originally posted by Scott@Jul 5th, 2004 - 7:07 am
Well,the first two images I do not like. Rather grotesque for Raf,non? I know he likes to capture the culture of youth but never would have I expected he'd do what's already been done a million times over....that hip-hop style is tedious.

I like his signature tailored pieces though,but I don't understand why he carried the scuba idea into this....doesn't seem to fit. All in all,very dismal.

ditto. the tailored pieces are as impeccable as ever, but the rest i do not care for. also, there doesn't seem to be a theme for this collection (or at least I can't stitch one together) - very uncharacteristic of Raf. All in all this is a dismal season for menswear. Ann and Les Hommes are my last two hopes...

 

[nqth]

Originally posted by faust@Jul 5th, 2004 - 7:14 am
.. also, there doesn't seem to be a theme for this collection (or at least I can't stitch one together) - very uncharacteristic of Raf.

Ditto:-)
6 pages of pictures in vogue.co.uk and I can't see a point. The sharp suits look great but in the whole it is a bit "blurring".

 

[mikeijames]

i guess if EVEN raf simons is doing the monochromatic thing it is a bonafide TREND....i still don't buy it though...this collection is such a reaction to that mess he put out last season i think....

 

[Sybarite]

I used to be a huge fan of Raf (from the very early beginning) but I must say his last collections kinda suck:
the Joy Division prints.
the oversized New Age pastel beaded crap
And now hip hop & scuba s**t. Please!
Of course the tailored pieces are nice but so déjà-vu.

 

[Deleted member 7575]

I was so looking forward to this collection and it is a major let down!

ok


Dior is my last hope for this season, please don't let me down hedi!

 

[Mr-Dale]

I like the suits and jacket's...it's a nice shade of grey...love the setting, with the esculator and all that...but the leather scuba thingy's and the tight white body-leggings?

 

[LolitaLuxe]

love some ( 2 looks ) hate the rest......

the leather suits scare me

i really wasnt expecting this .

 

[Orochian]

For someone who can cut a suit like this:

I simply can't imagine why he's constantly sidetracked and preoccupied with symbols of youth sub-culture like these:

And as always he isn't even trying to blend the two themes together, but present them seperately in a collection that ends up looking schizophrenic. I wish he'd just drop his silly little obsessions and instead stick to his roots with brilliantly-cut, well-made menswear. Some of the individual pieces here are more than enough proof he's fully capable of that.

 

[Lena]

true orochian but Raf is so totally hyped, he's not happy with just imaculate tailoring, he needs the youth kick.. but i agree, he's gradually losing focus like so many other from his generation.. sad but true.

i liked few pieces here and there, but this 'i want to please everyone' makes things quite complicated , a very crosseyed collection

 

[datura001]

There's something interesting in the chaos, in his pairing of what looks like leather body suits and tailored jackets--the morphing of what is appropriate at what time. It seems to me he's giving a statement about the future, about what is going to be required of men and what clothes they'll have as options to make whatever statements they'd like to make. It's incredibly mature to me, interesting, exciting...almost sacrificial...as if to say masculinity and questions about it will be on the back burner, that clothes aren't the right medium to explore those ideas and questions because...maybe...images of masculinity and it's inverse cannot be trusted...

Though at the end of the day, I hate getting too intellectual about fashion. It just seems to be that he's poking his finger into some open eye, just to muck things up a little. What would you say if you did see someone in one of these looks and they did pull it off quite well? What's going on then?

 

[Lena]

i can see your point datura, i think you are right

here extracts from the NYT article of today,
Raf is such a darling of the -hyped- Press

Few journalists were more aware of the danger of observation than Joseph Roth. "The `good observer,' " he wrote in 1925, soon after arriving here from Berlin, "is the sorriest reporter. He meets everything with open but inflexible eyes." In his reports in the Frankfurter Zeitung and in his novels, Roth, who died of alcohol poisoning in May 1939, at age 44, perceived that the world was continually changing: "In the space of a single second, everything can be transformed a thousand times over, disfigured, rendered unrecognizable." At most, he argued, a journalist can say how an experience felt to him. Because by the time he has set down his impressions, "the realities have grown out of the tight clothes we've put them in."

Roth's feelings sometimes overwhelmed his reporting. But wherever people strive to do more than what is expected of them (and very often we are content with less), don't they deserve our strongest emotions?

On Saturday, I almost skipped Raf Simons's show. It was far away and very late. And I had already begun to put my ducks in a row: Louis Vuitton (English flannels, cricket sweaters, silk pajamas — or "Brideshead Revisited" on a commercial level); Dries van Noten (Prince Harry on a pub and country-house crawl, with fab kilts); Junya Watanabe (potential potheads in Alpine hats and plaids lurking amid the edelweiss).

What Mr. Simons did in an instant was to render the day, and most of the previous one of the spring men's collections, obsolete. In 18 years of reporting on fashion, the last 5 at this post, I have stood up from only a handful of shows with a conviction that everything had been transformed. And I don't know why it is that out of a generation of so-called visionaries, only a few have Mr. Simons's capacity to deal with the future in a believable way. I don't want to see any more flabby impressions of the 1970's or hear them described as "ironic." And I don't want to go to "another country," because that country doesn't exist anymore.

Beginning with the skinny suits that made his reputation nearly a decade ago and made a Hedi Slimane possible, Mr. Simons gave a real glimpse of the future — heightened by the solemn descent of the models on an escalator and the music of Vangelis. To silky sport shirts he added trousers in a glacier-white leather that looked otherworldly, while chunky white sneakers were an ingenious blend of N.E.R.D. and NASA. In the fabrics, in the modern proportions — in the way a slim leather tunic resembled a T-shirt or a white nylon raincoat floated over a suit — it was evident that Mr. Simons was trying to work out fashion's next passage.

In the past, Mr. Simons, who is 36, used his clothes as social commentary, and he was startlingly prescient on the fear of terrorism. But he is no longer the reactionary. On his invitation was a random list of people and things that changed the world: sign language, Rosa Parks, the drinking straw, Taliesin West, Alan Turing, who cracked the Enigma code and hastened the end of World War II. Can a fashion designer make such a difference? Mr. Simons is bold to think so.

"I've always focused on my own history, my own evolution," he said as he was greeted with cheers backstage. "But now I want to think about the future." Last year, the Swiss Textile Federation awarded Mr. Simons a $120,000 prize. He should have a Swiss bank.

 

[faust]

Originally posted by Lena@Jul 6th, 2004 - 2:43 am
i can see your point datura, i think you are right

here extracts from the NYT article of today,
Raf is such a darling of the -hyped- Press

Few journalists were more aware of the danger of observation than Joseph Roth. "The `good observer,' " he wrote in 1925, soon after arriving here from Berlin, "is the sorriest reporter. He meets everything with open but inflexible eyes." In his reports in the Frankfurter Zeitung and in his novels, Roth, who died of alcohol poisoning in May 1939, at age 44, perceived that the world was continually changing: "In the space of a single second, everything can be transformed a thousand times over, disfigured, rendered unrecognizable." At most, he argued, a journalist can say how an experience felt to him. Because by the time he has set down his impressions, "the realities have grown out of the tight clothes we've put them in."

Roth's feelings sometimes overwhelmed his reporting. But wherever people strive to do more than what is expected of them (and very often we are content with less), don't they deserve our strongest emotions?

On Saturday, I almost skipped Raf Simons's show. It was far away and very late. And I had already begun to put my ducks in a row: Louis Vuitton (English flannels, cricket sweaters, silk pajamas — or "Brideshead Revisited" on a commercial level); Dries van Noten (Prince Harry on a pub and country-house crawl, with fab kilts); Junya Watanabe (potential potheads in Alpine hats and plaids lurking amid the edelweiss).

What Mr. Simons did in an instant was to render the day, and most of the previous one of the spring men's collections, obsolete. In 18 years of reporting on fashion, the last 5 at this post, I have stood up from only a handful of shows with a conviction that everything had been transformed. And I don't know why it is that out of a generation of so-called visionaries, only a few have Mr. Simons's capacity to deal with the future in a believable way. I don't want to see any more flabby impressions of the 1970's or hear them described as "ironic." And I don't want to go to "another country," because that country doesn't exist anymore.

Beginning with the skinny suits that made his reputation nearly a decade ago and made a Hedi Slimane possible, Mr. Simons gave a real glimpse of the future — heightened by the solemn descent of the models on an escalator and the music of Vangelis. To silky sport shirts he added trousers in a glacier-white leather that looked otherworldly, while chunky white sneakers were an ingenious blend of N.E.R.D. and NASA. In the fabrics, in the modern proportions — in the way a slim leather tunic resembled a T-shirt or a white nylon raincoat floated over a suit — it was evident that Mr. Simons was trying to work out fashion's next passage.

In the past, Mr. Simons, who is 36, used his clothes as social commentary, and he was startlingly prescient on the fear of terrorism. But he is no longer the reactionary. On his invitation was a random list of people and things that changed the world: sign language, Rosa Parks, the drinking straw, Taliesin West, Alan Turing, who cracked the Enigma code and hastened the end of World War II. Can a fashion designer make such a difference? Mr. Simons is bold to think so.

"I've always focused on my own history, my own evolution," he said as he was greeted with cheers backstage. "But now I want to think about the future." Last year, the Swiss Textile Federation awarded Mr. Simons a $120,000 prize. He should have a Swiss bank.

aaah, beat me to the article! I must say, I think the "hype" does not come (or at least did not originate)from the media itself, but is a result of Raf's talent as a designer (witness the numerous awards from different industry institutions, as well as lecturing positions). After all, Raf does not design for a big conglomerate, neither is he a celebrity dresser. So, I don't think this is the type of "hype" that Galliano or Lagerfeld gets. I think the "hype" has allowed Raf to explore (by staying financially secure), and I must say that he got away with pretty unwearable and bad collections since he came back from the sabbatical. I wish the same "hype" would surround Jurgi Persoons, who went down, and Hussein Chalayan - who never seems to stay financially secure.

 

[Lena]

Yurgi Persoons
i find him so much more talented than Raf

 

[coconut]

i just thought i'd put in what diane pernet wrote on the themes explored in this collection. its from www.disciplefilms.com and i'm not sure if it was in the press release.
"the references were to cosmonuts, scientists, mathmatical geniuses and the first black woman that refused to go to the back of the bus in America."
may be it's just my imagination but all these are united by the act of breaking in, discovering and euriking!!! generally. i like the collection even the scuba pant that i hate seems to fit in - isn't it used to make breaking into the water less painful and exploring the deep waters more easily.
thank god for this forum and take good care all of you! such a source of inspiration this threads are.

 

[coconut]

oh and i don't think hiphop-baggy-scater is overdone. i see people wearing it on the street all the time. and if they like it any variation is a welcome, i think.
well may be it's coz i wear it a lot.