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Few designers inspire the cultish fandom that Raf Simons does. His devotees range from music superstars including Rihanna and A$AP Rocky to the art world majordomo Sterling Ruby. Inside fashion he has plenty of admirers, too. Demna and Christopher Kane have been spotted at his shows, and Simons was sometimes seen at Marc Jacobs and Proenza Schouler.
When Simons himself posted the news that he was shuttering his namesake label yesterday, we took to our phones to ask his many loyalists about their favorite Raf collections through the years. This is what they told us.
Marc Jacobs, Designer
All of Raf’s collections are great. Sure, some resonate with me more than others, but it is just impossible to choose a favorite show let alone a favorite look. I guess Spring 2018 was unique as I had the great good fortune to be there and experience it live. The clothes, the setting—the smell and sounds, the cinematic Blade Runner environment. The clothes! The guests (I was standing next to A$AP Rocky)! A great collection and show is/are when all my senses fire up. It is an extremely emotional experience, a transcendent moment of awe and joy. I discovered my passion and love for fashion all over again.
Luka Sabbat, Model and Actor
Raf Simons has been able to capture the essence of youth, and so many different niche subcultures and bring them to light without over saturating them or making them uncool, but in fact bringing more eyes to them and having people gain interest in things that they might have not discovered if it wasn’t for him. Incorporating graphic designers and artists that typically wouldn’t be working on clothing such a Peter Saville or Peter De Potter. Simultaneously incorporating very American ideas such as college culture and American consumerism. Hence the choices of Summa Cum Laude (spring 2000) and Nebraska (fall 2002).
Joseph Quartana, Founder of Seven New York
I’d be thrilled to nominate a fave Raf look as someone who fearlessly sold his most conceptual pieces for 12 years at Seven New York. Besides selling Raf properly from ’02, we also did his runway show in 2004 at the yet-to-be-opened Marquee nightclub... Anyway, it’s a tough one, but I have to say my absolute fave Raf look (and collection) was fall 03, look 12/13, his Peter Seville collection with this iconic Bauhaus logo on a deftly manipulated leather bomber, over a matching machine knit Bauhaus sweater, with easy fitting tailored trousers and fabulous sandals (he was the ONLY one that could do mandals in a revolutionary, non-cheesy, non-Eurotrash way). I’d seriously wear this RIGHT NOW and think it so on the money. That collection sold so well at Seven that I didn’t take very many pieces of that collection, with big regret now. In fact I actually sold each one of the infamous "Unknown Pleasures" machine knit sweaters before I could grab one and seriously to this day, I have been scouring eBay for this piece to no avail. For me this look/collection really encapsulated Raf and his aesthetic: teen angst, elevated icons of the new wave, and post-punk era, freshly rethought outerwear, a certain formality that was not stiff at all, and then of course the model was Robbie Snelders, his Antwerp icon through the ’00s.
Christopher Kane, Designer
I’ve been admiring Raf’s work since I was a student, his steady vision, minimalist approach, and his love of youth culture has always made me a fan. I was lucky enough to see his last show in London and it didn’t disappoint, it was electric. It was effortlessly cool and quintessentially Raf. Raf is a boundary pusher and will remain so working at Prada.
Tommy Ton, Photographer
I’d have to say it’s probably my first Raf show, which was the fall 2009 show. Like a first kiss, I remember it quite fondly. I’m sure it’s not a particular favorite of many but I just remember it vividly from the staging to the soundtrack of choice, Art of Noise’s “Moments in Love.” There’s nothing like that feeling of going to a show you’ve been waiting years to attend. I just remember being enamored by the sculptural neoprene coats and boleros mixed with the splashes of hot pink and electric blue. I knew I immediately needed to have one of those coats and I sure did.
Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, Proenza Schouler Designers
We’ve been lucky to have known Raf for many years ever since he invited us to be guest judges in Hyères many years back. When he came to New York for Calvin Klein we became close and went to each other’s shows to support one another. This personal period we hold dear to our hearts. Spring 2018 especially comes to mind as an iconic Raf moment, of which of course there are many. That one seemed to have some of that big, festival-like energy that many of his early shows had and one we were able to experience in person. It was a major moment in NY fashion and one we will not soon forget. New York misses him dearly. Our loss is Milan’s gain and we’re happy his voice will continue to be an important one through his work at Prada.
Alexander Fury, Fashion Features Director, AnOther and Men’s Critic, Financial Times
Raf Simons spring 2002 collection was my first choice as my favorite—immediate, instinctive. It was the one that drew me into Raf’s world, that thrust menswear center-stage for me at a time when it was still largely a fashion footnote. But there is something deeper to my ongoing attraction—nay, obsession—with this show. Raf has told me many times that he wants his work to evoke emotion, to make people feel something: for me, that connection happened there and then. I was a kid, growing up in the English countryside, falling in love with fashion—and that 2001 Raf show, of torch-wielding freedom fighters with faces masked, was like a sucker punch. It was deeper than fashion, evoking every uncertainty you could feel about the world, alongside a sense of hope, the possibility to rebel and incite change, and the simple power of clothing as a means of communicating a message. A hooded top scrawled with the word ‘KOLLAPS’ said it all. It retains its power to shock even twenty-one years later, where its images have a raw energy, a majesty and a purity. I was fixated with this show back in 2001, and still am. I’m not the only one. They have also undoubtedly influenced fashion profoundly over the past two decades—as has much that Raf has created. But I feel that Raf would be prouder of the fact that his clothes have touched and moved people, made us all feel something.
Jonas Glöer, model
The Raf collection closest to my heart is what we called the “I love New York collection” for fall 2017 and the “Blade Runner collection,” which took place the season after that. I had just moved to New York, Raf had just moved to New York, and we started working closer together than before. A small team from Antwerp would fly in every couple of weeks for a week of intense fittings. To be in a new city together and to work that intimately created a feeling of family and I’m very thankful that I could be a part of that.
David Casavant, Archvist
My favorite is autumn/winter 2002. It’s collegiate preppy clothes worn while camping in a scary forest. I feel like it’s different from a lot of his other collections, it feels pretty American to me as well. I love the letterman jackets from this collection, there was a play on the placement of the letters. One of the jackets says “UFO” on the back. There were clear rain ponchos worn over the letterman jackets in the show. It all almost had a whimsical fairy tale feel to it to me. I even have a sleeping bag from this collection to top it all off. I love the idea that so many pieces from this collection were produced to create the full story and feel of it down to a sleeping bag.
David Vandewal, Stylist
This spring 2000 collection changed my perspective on men’s fashion. The graphic woolen sweaters, the patchwork t-shirts, the big volume MA-1 bombers, the classic trousers paired with customized black All Star Converse sneakers or just white sport socks. Guido [Palau]’s incredible gabber inspired haircuts, Peter Philips’s grooming transforming all these incredible fresh guys into icons. It was a game-changing, huge moment in men’s fashion in my opinion, a new aesthetic.
Steff Yotka, Head of Digital Content, SSENSE
What hooked me on Raf Simons from the start is how he tackles such terrible realities—dystopia, depression, despair—with such beauty and softness. I know “Woe Unto Those Who Spit on the Fear Generation…The Wind Will Blow It Back” is everyone’s favorite Raf Simons collection for both its prescience and its Kollaps hoodies, but I find its ending series of all white, layered garments on barefoot models to be one of Raf’s most enduring and poignant gestures. (The accompanying film, “Safe,” by Willy Vanderperre is also quietly haunting.) He keeps one hand in the fire and the other in the clouds—that’s what has made every show a thriller and a favorite. Like any fan, I am very bummed about the news, but I’m going to meditate on what he told Sarah Mower about his collaboration with Philippe Vandenberg for spring 2023: “He meant killing things that you’re doing creatively in order to move on and explore further.”
Bosse Myhr, Head of Womenswear and Menswear, Selfridges
Raf’s fall 2002 Virginia Creeper collection, with its now iconic Nebraska sweatshirt, laid the foundations of inspiration for so many collections to come. The mid 2010s super trend of streetwear referenced a lot of Raf’s early collections. And every piece in this particular one is a grail today. More recently the Mapplethorpe spring ’17 collection shown at Pitti Florence was a standout in the Raf canon.
Sam Lobban, EVP / GMM Apparel & Designer at Nordstrom
My favorite Raf Simons collection would have to be spring 2002…“Woe Unto Those Who Spit on the Fear Generation… The Wind Will Blow It Back.” The styling, setting, and imagery all still feel super impactful 20 years later. Every time I look over that collection it’s like seeing it for the first time—I’m also fortunate enough to have one of the collection look books, shot by Willy Vanderperre, and signed by Raf with the words ‘Be Pure, Be Vigilant, Behave’ on the inside.
Marc Forne, Stylist and Menswear Editor
Oh, how a man made me love a knit so bad! I can still remember seeing those off-shoulder oversized jumpers thinking, “if that isn’t me next season, then who?”And indeed, that was me the following season without a doubt, running happily around Paris in a piece of knitted wool larger than myself.
The Blade runner moment, New Order, those neon lights, a rainy punk energetic walk… I guess it's always been his dark way of putting down incredible storytelling, those clearly written messages applied to avant-garde collections. The way one could dream, understand, and appreciate fashion through his master classes season after season…
I like to look at these past 27 years as the career of a professor for the industry. Someone who should be appreciated like very few. A tale I always wanted to be part of and valued so much, always through my phone or computer until the latest show. I could not have imagined it as the very last one–where in London I was dancing at his one last rave. We were seeing the end of an era being. It's something we’ll keep close with us.
Raven Smith, Writer and Vogue Columnist
Well my fave is spring 2012, just the purity and confidence with color. The trousers were trademark slick, the knits were killer and there’s an intriguing sleevelessness you can trace right to my wardrobe today. I have one of a trio of zippered leather vests that I wore on New Year’s Eve, which tells you everything about its place in my esteem.
Shane Gonzales, Founder and Artistic Director of Midnight Studios
I’ll never forget seeing this collection for the first time. I can’t recall what year that would have been, maybe 2011-2012, but when I did I knew exactly what direction I would want to go. I remember around this time I had thought of really getting into menswear as a young kid, and not knowing exactly what direction I would go. I was so mesmerized by the tonal looks, bridging sharp tailoring and oversized slouched silhouettes. The graphic language was so foreign to me at the time compared to anything else I had ever seen, so it really set the bar for what I hoped to achieve one day within my own work.