Raf Is All The Rave - click for photos
Written by Timothy Hagy
PARIS, July 4 - Through the late night they stream, always to some creepy
destination where enigmatic signs point the way. Up ramps, down elevators,
around concrete pools, the crowds of young Euro kids, off duty models, the
powerhouse of New York publishing and the fashion elite all go to see what
Raf Simons has to say.
The futuristic Belgian designer made his fortune all but predicting 9/11
with his anti-globalization show staged in the midsummer of 2001. (W. all
but lost his on an expedition that same August, ignoring early CIA warnings
and brushing aside suggestions that he was 'disconnected'.)
Saturday near midnight, Simons staged his Spring 2005 men's wear
show in La Géode, a concrete dome built on the site of a former slaughterhouse
in a working class neighborhood on the outskirts of Paris. The
staging itself was a work of art, with boys floating up and down escalators
like clones in white, gray and black suits. Perhaps most striking about
this season's show was the fact that sartorial panache is back in favor,
and the crisp suits in graphic linear silhouettes alternated with capes
and parkas with cylindrical curves. The planetary designs, often in plastic,
were somewhat suggestive of Pierre Cardin or André Corrèges
in the 1960s. But look carefully, and you notice the modern leather and
acrylic pants, where seams and patches and even elliptical zippers were
worked meticulously into a balanced pattern. Redingotes curled around elastic
body suits, and Batman-in-white capes fluttered with intricate draping and
stitching.
Influenced in part by the music of Edgar Varèse (1883-1965) the French
composer considered to be the father of electronic music, the show revealed
just how securely Simons has his finger on the pulse of the young generation.
Two buyers from New York testified that his pieces sell out as fast as they
can put them on the shelves, and that the age of the average customer is
15-20.
In a departure from past tradition, Raf Simons, the designer who once never
showed his face in public, made a dramatic entrance, gliding down an escalator
to a roaring standing ovation.
Raf Is All The Rave - click for photos
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