Image via Complex Original
When Dior and I hits theaters today, it will cement 47-year-old Raf Simons’ position as more than just a designer. Yes, trap boys all over his knew name after A$AP Rocky confessed “Raf Simons, Rick Owens usually what I’m dressed in,” and of course that’s if they didn’t already know his name from when Kanye West interviewed the designer in 2008, but this film pushes things to another level. Though the weirdest part is, it sort of glosses over the area where Simons has had the most influence—menswear.
When the Belgian designer started in fashion, he caught accolades left and right for his forward-thinking approach to how dudes should dress. After interning for Walter Van Bierendonck—who himself had been exercising more than a bit of #influence via the Antwerp Six—and crying at 1991 Maison Martin Margiela “White” show, the designer struck out on his own in 1995. That was a full 20 years ago and since then he’s pushed the silhouette of menswear three, maybe four times and positioned himself at the creative forefront, season after season. Want proof? We count down five ways that Raf Simons affected current menswear trends—years before any rapper or hot brand did it.
Raf Simons revived the skinny suit.
The credit for Simons’ first silhouette is usually given to Hedi Slimane—it’s understandably a sore point for Slimane who got into a dust up over Twitter with Cathy Horyn about it. Slim suits, slimmer lapels and narrow shoulders came down his runway at a time when fuller cuts for more muscular bodies were the look of the day. Horyn attributed the skinny suit's revival to Simons' 1998 "Black Palms" collection (check the video above) that introduced a super slim line of looks at a time when it was all about the bagginess.
That was his look after only about three seasons into his own line and it ended up seeping from his Antwerp-based studio into the larger international fashion conscious. Most notably Slimane adopted it, then working at Dior Homme, pushing the industry’s eye so much that even Karl Lagerfeld admitted to slimming down in order to fit into the uncompromising shape. Even though Raf Simons is creative director at Dior, he focuses only on the women's wear and high-end couture collections, the process of which is depicted in the Dior and I film. Dior Homme is currently run by Kris Van Assche, who took over in Slimane's stead. Maybe those reins should be handed over to Simons as well.
The original king of the youth casted cool teens off the street in his shows.
Raf Simons is a big proponent of street casting. Sounds familiar? Yeah, Slimane sort of did that too. Changing the silhouette so drastically meant that many of the male models of the time weren’t a fit for what this new look needed. The Marky Marks of the time gave way to much thinner frames like those of Simons muse Robbie Snelders. And while just a tactic, the streetcasting was only a signifier of a cornerstone of the Raf Simons brand: youth. From an angsty, sometimes gender bending, typically art/music infused place has come two decades of design—minus a year period from 2000 to 2001 where the designer went on hiatus—from a self-trained creative director and former furniture designer.
The heavily-logoed, layered look hypebeasts just discovered? Raf Simons invented it.
Raf Simons started to get more renown when he took over Jil Sander in 2005, but by that time he had already pushed forward a second silhouette. Spring 2002 was called “Woe Onto Those Who Spit On The Fear Generation… The Wind Will Blow It Back” and therein lie a silhouette of layered hoodies, slogan t-shirts, leather coats and what came to be known as an “urban guerilla” aesthetic. Scarves were wrapped around the face and for most critics, it was the most important menswear show of the early 2000s and was endlessly copied. An avid fan of music and art, Simons regularly used screenprinted graphics from artists like Peter Saville (the guy behind the ubiquitous Joy Division Unknown Pleasures album art) long before it became part of the Tumblr nerd starter kit.
Raf Simons always encouraged taking the stuffiness out of suits.
From 2012 up until now the beanie has seen a bit of a resurgence, and while sometimes it’s worn with a hoodie or just a sweatshirt, it’s been increasingly paired with suiting, think Josh Peskowitz or Trés Bien owners Simon and Hannes Hogeman for the last few seasons—or any number of guys at Pitti Uomo this past January. Simons has been at the forefront of pushing the overall trend of matching tailoring and casualwear, including the now rampant pairing of sneakers and suits.
Raf Simons is pretty much the king of high-end collaborations.
A perennial influence of art and artists have played a large part in Simons’ career. The latest link up of note? Raf Simons linked up with Sterling Ruby whom he calls a “gangsta Rothko” in for the Dior couture collection depicted in Dior and I, but also for a collection of menswear grails last fall. Of course this comes on top of collaborations with Eastpak, Adidas, and Fred Perry as well as a one-of-one collab with A$AP Rocky. Factor in past artist tie-ins with Peter Saville, Pablo Picasso, Brian Calvin and Franky Claey, and Simons could rival BAPE and Supreme as the true collab king.
Simons’ ascension and popularity at Dior is for bringing to womenswear essentially what he’s been doing in menswear for the past 20 years: knowing not only what the idea of youth is, but being able to distill that into clothing. Even in that 2008 interview with Kanye West he recognized the impending nature of the fashion industry to dissolve into a series of collaborations—though he did say no to one with West at the time. And though Dior and I will be celebrating his work in a sector of the industry he’s only been in for 10 years, it definitely gives viewers a new appreciation of a man who has consistenly proven to be ahead of his time.
