Raf Simons discontinues own brand
The Belgian designer surprised his fans with bad news yesterday: his own brand is being discontinued.
It is reminiscent of a feeling of farewell similar to that of Helmut Lang: Raf Simons, the designer who helped Jil Sander and Dior to exciting heights, will discontinue his own brand.
For 27 years, Raf Simons had kept the fashion world on tenterhooks every season and - like Martin Margiela or Rei Kawakubo - was sure to have a loyal following. Simons has always been able to skilfully combine avant-garde and commerce in his collections. The minimalism established in the 90s remained in his blood and was his signature, which he remained true to and also passed on to the students of the Applied Fashion Class in Vienna, which he led for a year.
It was in Vienna that he was inspired for layering fabrics, as he once told in an interview. This was first used in his much acclaimed collection "Riot! Riot! Riot!" (Autumn/Winter 2001/2002) and continued to develop in the "Virginia Creeper" collection the next season.
Often dubbed one of the "most influential designers" of our time, he is no Karl Lagerfeld. Not a persona that corresponds to the caricature of a fashion designer - or what the mass media understand by that. That would not suit him at all. Simons is a tinkerer who spends days in the ateliers and works quietly and highly concentrated when fitting, as we saw him do in the documentary "Dior and I". But it is precisely this silence, working with subtlety and understatement, that will be missing in noisy times like these.
Raf Simon's Instagram post announcing the exit is now the only post on the brand's Instagram channel. Fellow designers such as Pieter Mulier (ALAÏA) and Pierpaolo Piccioli (Valentino) commented below the post.
Cover photo: Shutterstock
