Fashion Charts IV

1. Calvin Klein Fall/Winter 2014

2. Marc Jacobs Fall/Winter 2014

3. The Row Fall/Winter 2014

Longing for mall pyjamas and couchwear. The very best of luxury potatoe knitwear. So cozy (Francisco), so pedestrian (Marc), so miserable (Ashley and Mary-Kate). New York is dressing down for the 21st century.
/HORST

Empty Pockets

1. Fendi Fall/Winter 2013
2. Prada Spring/Summer 1999
3. Yohji Yamamoto Fall/Winter 2004

The pocket as exaggaretd means of space and transport. Enough room for the globalized psyche of a world traveller. Multi-minded, try-sexual, jet-sad. Unable to keep anything and take everything with himself.
/HORST

The Real Winner Of Paris Fashion Week, An Afterthought

Gareth Pugh Fall/Winter 2013

Poetry aside, comparisons forgotten - I will now speak my word and thought, as it is.

The best collection for Fall/Winter 2013, presented during Paris Fashion Week, was - by far - presented by Gareth Pugh. It was a romantic, psychologic and deeply emotional exercise in womenswear, respectively its recurrent icon: the dress.

A balance act of soft and hard, cut and dimension. It felt massive and out of proportion, out of sight with the 'real' world. Women disappeared in grey pyramids of crispy textiles - just to be resurrected again as superhuman goddesses. Similar ideas have been proposed by Junya Watanabe and Thom Browne, and lately also by Maison Martin Margiela or Giles but it never felt as 'right' and logical. The transformation of each look happened so meticulously, one had to look twice to feel the 'difference' - just to arrive at the total other end, in the end.
/HORST

Identity Crisis

1. Raf Simons Fall/Winter 2013
2. Prada Fall/Winter 2013

After a recurrent tribute to Helmut Lang via Jil Sander (the cross, the show credit print), Raf is channeling Miuccia. Just like Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin in Big Business (1988) someone swapped bodies. But somehow something got lost in transmission. And comedy turns into grotesque horror, see The Fly (1958).
/HORST

Exhibitionist, 2012

or 'For Your Eyes Only'













Coat Whyred
Backless T-shirt Laitinen

His uniform is oversized, his coat unbuttoned. Hands casually hidden in deep pockets, carefully controlling the moment of reveal and indecent exposure. He is a son of Raf Sander.
/HORST

Exhibitionist, Prologue

Jil Sander Fall/Winter 2012

She is caught in a liaison dangereuse. Cold hands clinging to her coat that will later serve as a robe. She is equally nervous and excited. Will this encounter be their last and only or just the beginning.
/HORST

Post Paris XX

A false encyclopaedic guide to the menswear collections, presenting:
Balenciaga Spring/Summer 2013

1. Agostino Arrivabene Luci-Fero, 1997-2007
2. American Gigolo 1980
3. Prada Spring Spring/Summer 2008

From Italian Americana to Prada's floral fantasy collection, from 80s power dressing to religious nostalgia. The established icons of kitsch and overdosage. Bless those foes.
/HORST

Mrs. Raf Sander, Epilogue

or 7 Reasons why the Jil Sander Spring/Summer 2013 collection, presented by Jil Sander, was in fact designed by Raf Simons



1. Raf Simons Spring/Summer 2009 vs. Jil Sander Spring/Summer 2013
"What I’ve been conscious of, from the beginning, is that I can’t be Jil Sander." - Raf Simons


2. Raf Simons Spring/Summer 2012 vs. Jil Sander Spring/Summer 2013
"I was expecting a difficult path but immediately the reception was good and I was being called son of Jil Sander." - Raf Simons


3. Raf Simons Spring/Summer 2010 vs. Jil Sander Spring/Summer 2013
"Men's fashion is more complicated than women's." - Raf Simons


4. Raf Simons Spring/Summer 2007 vs. Jil Sander Spring/Summer 2013
"I spend a lot of time reading about artists, trying to figure out how they approached something." - Raf Simons


5. Raf Simons Spring/Summer 2009 vs. Jil Sander Spring/Summer 2013
"I am somebody who focuses on a dialogue between generations - that's the drive of my work." - Raf Simons


6. Raf Simons Fall/Winter 2012 vs. Jil Sander Spring/Summer 2013
"In this business, I know I could work somewhere else one day." - Raf Simons


7. Raf Simons Fall/Winter 2009 vs. Jil Sander Spring/Summer 2013
“I am having to bring it back to our heritage.” - Jil Sander

Placement of typography, the grainy structure, the oversized suit, the sleeveless and the hourglass jacket. It is easy to identify constitutive elements of Raf Simons' design language. Jil Sander will need more time. Her real return will be in womenswear.
/HORST

Post Graduate V

A false encyclopaedic guide to the Central Saint Martins collections, presenting:
Anita Hirlekar B.A. Graduate Collection 2012

1. Ann Demeulemeester Spring/Summer 2012
2. Willi Baumeister Apoll, 1922
3. Samuel Drira & Sybille Walter encens 24, 2010

The lithographic image of women. An anti-sexualized, neutralized, androgynous graphic body. Birth child of Late Cubism and New Romanticism. If Braque was a Blitz Child. If Ann, Anita and Sybille were part of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.
/HORST