Can you show the same collection twice? Raf Simons’s new Archive Redux rerelease of 100 pieces from past shows allows a second life for specific items, but his spring 2021 collection took the idea much further. Back in 1999, Simons presented a nearly all-black collection titled “Disorder—Incubation—Isolation” that opened with three models carrying flags, one with each word on it. After seven months of pandemic-induced quarantine in 2020, Simons debuted a nearly no-black collection called “Teenage Dreams,” citing the same three Joy Division songs in a press release.
The palette may have changed, but the haunting cape hoodies and swing-back coats remained the same. Simons’s logo turtlenecks also persevered, their monogram R migrating from the hip to the neck. With their bowl cuts and haunting demeanor, the models in this show exude a certain timelessness—or maybe it’s that no matter how far we come, disorder, incubation, and isolation remain at the heart of our lived experience.
