Raf Simons marked his first ten years in the business with a book, a video retrospective, and a show of his latest collection in Florence s Boboli Gardens, widely regarded as Italy s most important park. The classical grandeur of the setting suited the theme of Simons collection—Icarus, in all his heroic isolation—and many of the clothes had a feel of airiness, movement, and flight. Shirts and T-shirts, for example, were literally opened up via latticework. Tops were radically—and fluidly—oversized to match the full trousers he s been showing, and full-length coats with huge floating tailpieces looked more like wings than ever. Linen loaned a different kind of construction to his tailoring, with jackets and tops in a linen mesh, expanding on the idea of air passing through clothes.
Reflecting Simons family background, colors stayed within a military palette—gunmetal, slate, black, and Air Force blue, as well as his beloved dove-gray. And though those huge trousers came without last season s obi-like belt, it was still easy to picture them on a samurai (worn with shoes that looked like gladiator sandals). Simons, however, wasn t partial to the warrior analogy. Heroes, just for one day? Absolutely. But lovers, not fighters.
