Granularity X

1. Dior Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2014
2. Helmut Lang Surrogate Skin, 2008
3. Raf Simons/Sterling Ruby Fall/Winter 2014
4. Helmut Lang Make It Hard, 2011
5. Dior Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2014
6. Helmut Lang Arbor, 2008
7. Dior Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2014
8. Dior Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2014
9. Helmut Lang Arbor, 2008
10. Helmut Lang Fall/Winter 1996 & Dior Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2014
11. Dior Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2014
12. Helmut Lang Front Row, 2009
13. Raf Simons/Sterling Ruby Fall/Winter 2014

The Raf Sandior universe is a hermeneutic one. Like father, like son. Or like 'Fathers Fathers' and 'Abus(ive) Lang(uage)'. And as we know, this letter similitude is no coincidence. What would father say?
/HORST

Now & Then XIII

Jil Sander Spring/Summer 2012
Helmut Lang Fall/Winter 2002

The eel skin coat. When Raf Simons & Sterling Ruby decided to place patches with the cryptic reading of 'fathers' and 'abus lang' onto their collaboration collection, it may well be regarded as collective reassurance.
/HORST

A Short History Of Typography In Popular Culture VII

1. Barbara Kruger Untitled (Your Gaze Hits The Side Of My Face), 1981
2. Raf Simons Spring/Summer 2002
3. Jay-Z Magna Carta Holy Grail, 2013
4. Barbara Kruger Untitled (I Shop Therefore I Am), 1987
5. Helmut Lang Fall/Winter 1997
6. Bruce Weber Helmut Lang, Fall/Winter 1997
7. Acne Spring/Summer 2013
8. Barbara Kruger Untitled (Are We Having Fun Yet?), 1987
9. Acne Spring/Summer 2013
10. Barbara Kruger Untitled (You Are Not Yourself), 1982
11. Raf Simons Spring/Summer 1998

Barbara Krüger collaborates with Kanye West. Louise Bourgeois poses for Helmut Lang. Raf Simons quotes the Sex Pistols. What they share is a 'cut and paste' approach and sense for the censored message. Black bars and red markers constitute their visual language. An advertisement for feminism, hedonism and consumerism. Are we having fun yet?
/HORST

Post Paris XXXIII

A 'False Encyclopaedia' double feature with John-Michael O'Sullivan, discussing:
Raf Simons Spring/Summer 2014

It's a boy/girl thing.

Before Raf Simons became boldface RAF SIMONS, he was just a shy Belgian student, hanging around with the cool kids - kids like his girlfriend, Véronique Branquinho, who would go on to collaborate with him at Ruffo, and to teach at the same fashion school in Vienna. And though Simons' star quickly outshone Branquinho's, you get the sense that he's never entirely shaken the vestiges of that outsiderish-ness, that lack of the intrinsic cool which Branquinho so effortlessly had.

The surfaces of this collection were so alive with associations to the past - the neon-pink shoulders from AW09, the rainbow stripes from Jil Sander Spring 2011 - that you had to pick away to get to the nancy-boy softness of thigh-grazing polo shirts, pinafore vests and fluid tees. Increasingly, his own-label collections seem as much about the flesh left exposed - the lean, gangly legs and arms emerging from cropped shorts and sleeveless shirts - as they are about the garments themselves. And the barrage of slogans (like the Jean Prouvé house, and the Calder mobile, and the Warhol illustrations stamped onto his last Dior womenswear collection) felt like semaphore; appropriated shorthand for a message that Simons won't, or can't, quite articulate.
/JOHN-MICHAEL

Undeniably, there is some kind of excitement attached to Raf Simons. And when you divide its parts, there is nothing exciting about it. Maybe it could be called 'Analytic Pop'. Ordinary things we know, signature ideas we crave, irritation we surrender to. Rave and advertising. Subculture and commerce. Raf is selling himself, selling out, selling dreams. A mass-media machine, a masturbation factory, a perpetuum mobile. The TV station that will exceed MTV. We have to admit the 'happy yeah' and swallow the pill.
/HORST








1. Raf Simons Spring/Summer 2014
2. Jean Prouvé 1962 & Alexander Calder 1957 & Raf Simons 2011
3. Helmut Lang Spring/Summer 2004
4. Raf Simons & Véronique Branquinho Ruffo Research, 2000
5. Andy Warhol Four Dollar Signs, 1982
6. Damien Hirst Lullaby, 2002
7. Dior Fall/Winter 2013
8. Raf Simons Spring/Summer 2014

All about John-Michael O'Sullivan

Twombly Dialogues IV

1. Cy Twombly Rotalla, 1986
2. Helmut Lang Jürgen Teller, Backstage Fall/Winter 1999

The second pairing of Twombly and Lang. Here, we can most certainly speak of a direct 'dialogue' - having Lang's shredded clothes sculptures in mind, his series 'Make It Hard' from 2011 vividly seeks in continuing the artistic tradition of Cy Twombly.
/HORST

Twombly Dialogues

1. Cy Twombly Cycnus, 1978
2. Helmut Lang Fall/Winter 2004

When looking at Cy Twombly's sculptures from 1953 to 2009 I see Helmut Lang, Rick Owens, Ann Demeulemeester. And I will attempt to compile a synchronous collection, restricted to white. Starting with a palm leaf in pleated organza.
/HORST

Helmut Dialogues VII

Part IV of 'Duplicate Diptych Week'



1. Helmut Lang Spring/Summer 2001
2. Acne Pre-Fall 2013

In this case, the body-conscious 'original' is replaced by a free-spirited 'play' of volume. It may thus not be regarded as remake of a classic but its caberet adaption. The costume as tragic-comical tribute.
/HORST

A Short History Of The Comic Strip In Popular Culture V

1. Helmut Lang Spring/Summer 2003
2. Dirk Bikkembergs Fall/Winter 2003
3. Felix, the Cat 1919
4. Popeye, the Sailor 1919
5. Moschino Cheap & Chic, 1995
6. Givenchy Fall/Winter 2013
7. Comme des Garçons Spring/Summer 2005

The use of comic characters in fashion. Felix, the Cat appears at Helmut Lang and Dirk Bikkembergs. Olivia (from Popeye, the Sailor) becomes the alter ego for Moschino. Bambi is cut and pasted into Givenchy while Pink Panther functions as declared muse for Rei Kawakubo. What does it tell us? It tells stories without telling stories. It's a pastiche, a placeholder. a licence deal. An epic history in thousand chapters with the ultimate cliffhanger: hanger appeal.
/HORST