Raf Simons Spring 2017
Belgian designer Raf Simons was this season’s designer spotlight at the biannual Florentine trade show Pitti Immagine Uomo, and on Thursday evening, Simons unveiled his Spring 2017 collection at the city’s Stazione Leopolda—the city’s oldest train station—to a hall of standing-room only guests. Models weaved through the hall in clothes created in collaboration with the late American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe’s foundation (and loosely inspired by musicians Patti Smith, Bob Dylan, and Jim Morrison).
Each of the 57 Raf Simons Spring 2017 looks featured a print of Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989)’s images, while the curly-haired, clean shaven male models were styled to emulate a Mapplethorpe work. Prints featured self-portraits of the late photographer or models in leather clothing or undergarments rife with sexual undertones. Meanwhile, if the silhouettes of the shirts were gently oversized and sometimes layered with roomy sweaters, cropped vests, or straight-cut trenches; and accessorized with slanted leather caps. Among the eggshell, stark black, blush pink, lavender, and deep burgundy on display, the pinstriped shirts and those cozy cocoon sweaters were the hero pieces—with the former certain to be snapped up by Simons and Mapplethorpe aficionados alike.
