He called his show History of My World, but Raf Simons refused to revisit the past with his latest collection. To be more precise, he looked back only as far as last season's epochal offering, which was clearly the jumping-off point for Raf's new century (remember, it's always Year 4 before a decade really kicks into gear).
For fall, then, Simons expanded on his poignant, futuristic vocabulary, which embraces a radical new shape. The presentation itself was overlong and repetitive, but it made its point with a baggy-trousered, cropped-jacket silhouette that focused attention on a loose, gathered waistline. Under some of those paper-bag waists, a wide leather corset belt made the point still further, as did a cropped puffer-trench-coat hybrid and a gun-metal double-breasted jacket that looked like a sawed-off trench. A lot of the clothes had military or uniform connotations, with one outfit combining black trousers, black shirt, and black tie. Yes, these rang a little sinister. But, like the shoulder and elbow pads on his Jacquard knits, they were surely just reflecting the essentially combative nature of Simons' designs. If you're not thinking about these clothes, they're not working.
Of course, such is the purity of Simons' tailoring that some pieces, like a gray topcoat, required no thought at all. And there was always the straightforward masculinity of a huge double-collared shearling coat.
