Raf Simons is coming back to Paris, showing his menswear in June

By

Godfrey Deeny

Published
May 25, 2018

After a hiatus of three seasons, Raf Simons is to return to Paris to stage his next menswear show.

He will present his Spring/Summer 2019 collection in the City of Light on Wednesday, June 20 at 9.30 p.m., the Belgian designer’s house announced Friday.
 
The news marks a significant win for the Paris menswear catwalk season, luring back to France one of the most influential menswear collections on the international calendar.

For the past 18 months, Simons has staged his menswear shows in Manhattan, ever since he took over the reins of Calvin Klein, and relocated to New York to helm that storied American label.
 
His signature show was regarded as such a bellwether event that many international editors and retailers timed their arrival to New York season around his show. Underlining Simons’ remarkable reputation, during his stay in NYC the Belgian won both awards for menswear and womenswear designer of the year in 2017 at the CFDA Awards, the unofficial Oscars of fashion.

His most recent show on Wednesday, February 8, featured a modern Bacchanalia set in a disused garage with Sherlock Holmes-like cape coats; sweater/scarves in Argyle and striped track pants – all inspired by the cult Berlin film Christian F.
 
Inside the dank space on Manhattan’s Westside, the models walked around an elevated dinner setting, replete with giant bowls of lemons, apples and pears; chocolate (from Belgium, where else?); huge cheese rounds; scores of country breads; and hundreds of wine bottles from Piper to Californian shiraz. All decent vintages.
 
The original Christiane F. was a dark tale set in the Berlin of David Bowie’s Heroes, about a beautiful teenager who descends into heroin addiction, which clearly influenced Simons. “Well, for one thing it kept me a long way away from drugs,” stressed the 50-year-old designer, who first saw the movie when he was 14.
 
Somewhat ironically, his fall 2017 collection featured a white sweater emblazoned with a huge NY logo and what the designer termed “an abstract expression of love.”  Maybe not that much, baby.