Walking in the middle of a rave party can be done, and Raf Simons demonstrated it last night at the Printworks of Canada Water, under radiant fluorescent green lights and the techno played by clara3000. In the maxi industrial location once the printing house of Daily Mail, today a night club destined to close at the end of the year, the Belgian designer has organized a real party that starts and ends on the bar counter. Between a gin and tonic and a vodka sour, the room is already full of journalists, friends, designers and university students. All invited to the big event, no one excluded: his non-elitist fashion really brings everyone together thanks to some tickets put online and finished in a short time with the fastest clicks.
For Raf Simons, born in 1968, this is the London debut. City of inspiration for several of his collections, London has been defined by the designer himself as a melting pot of perennial creativity. After leaving fans disappointed with the cancellation of the show during Fashion Week last September – due to the sudden disappearance of Queen Elizabeth – Simons moved the event to the seventh of the art, to coincide with the Frieze Art Fair. Art and music are in fact the great passions of the designer, who, since the 90s, takes and re-proposes on his clothes symbols of style and influences of the English punk and post punk world, from Joy Division to Sex Pistols.
Against the backdrop of the DJ at the end of the long black bar, a big screen projects the dancers of the New York City Ballet dressed as Simons himself in polka dot leggings and fiery red knitwear – a hint of the designer’s collaboration with the company and a preview of what awaits us on the catwalk. And it is in fact all of a sudden that the actual show begins, with the lights turning on and the music stopping for a moment, while the bottles disappear on the bar counter that turns into a catwalk.
For spring summer 2023 Raf Simons presents a sexy and decisive look, which mixes men and women with tailored pieces and tight silhouettes. The colors of the season are knitwear gray on leggings colored in yellow, pale pink, and bright red, reminiscent of the shades of the recent Prada collections designed by Simons himself alongside Miuccia. Boots for men and mary jane laced with bows for women, black patent leather. Waist straps close tailored suits and coats with cropped sleeves are sculptural. The punk hint can be seen on the fishnet tank tops, the leather biker jacket and the thick red lettering prints by the Belgian painter Philippe Vandenberg, also reproduced on mini posters as an invitation to the fashion show. The show closes with a tailored look with a gray wool jacket and skirt over a shocking yellow legging, which marks the return of the 80s sock, decidedly modernized.
A brief greeting from the designer at the end of the catwalk and the black counter returns to being a piano bar. Accompanied by a second or third gin and tonic, the applause goes out under the techno that starts again – and the great rave continues into the night signed by Raf Simons.