What You Need To Know About Raf Simons SS18 Show

Among the many brands to present their collections, from Patrik Ervell to General Idea, Yesterday the giant of these days came down on the catwalk: Raf Simons.

Here's everything you need to know about the show SS18 of the Belgian designer, defined by many as the true king of contemporary fashion.

The collection

How to translate a mood among Blade Runner, the New Wave and the Eastern into fashion?

Only Simons is able to find an interesting and cool answer: long trenches, sometimes worn backwards, which seem to be taken from the wardrobe Deckard-Ford; oversize track suits with bright and metallic shades; sleeveless jackets with elasticized ends; light sarongs worn instead of pants; suites with jackets rolled sleeves and culotte style pants; sweaters over the V-neck; wide-brimmed hats in floral print scarves pendant and rubber boots like those worn by municipal workers and Japanese fishermen.

And there are still stratifications, umbrellas, and quotations from Peter Saville’s art, famous graphic designers, album cover authors who have conquered the world.

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Have a look at Raf Simons SS18 aftershow - 11.07.17, New York

Set: Chinatown as 2019 Los Angeles

Chinatown becomes a sort of Los Angeles 2019.

Simons chooses as a set for his show a glimpse that appears to have emerged from the cult film Blade Runner: a courtyard under a bridge in the Lower East Side where carts of a typical Chinese night market distribute Tsingtao beer and Fiji water to the public exhausted from the heat and from waiting.

Complete the neo-dip in the distro-Oriental style with the words “REPLICANTS” and, hanging on the ceiling, Chinese lanterns decorated with references to the covers of Joy Division and New Order albums by Peter Saville, Simons myth and author including the new Calvin Klein logo.

Moodboard

Raf himself tells the mood of his New York show:

"There are a lot of things that go back to my early days and why we started doing the things we did. So there were strong music references from the past, as you can see. But there are juxtapositions in a different way taken out of context, basically; it’s about movies (about Blade Runner, clearly), it’s about cultures sliding together--that’s the most important message for me, Asian culture and the culture of the west coming together. And you know there was a bit of new wave, punk attitude, but not aesthetically, more in the attitude like taking a different kind of things… Good Vibes… I wanted it to be energetic".

Front Row

Impatient to attend Simons show a crowd of journalists and stars standing in wait.

The most recognizable and famous faces? A$AP Rocky, at the moment perhaps the biggest fan of Belgian designer Julianne Moore with her husband and director Bart Freundlich, Jake Gyllenhaal, Christian Slater, Ashton Sanders, Hanne Gaby Odiele and Marc Jacobs, who enthusiastically declared to Vogue:

"I love Raf and he’s a good friend, so I’m very glad he’s here…he brings a creativity to American fashion which I think is lacking".