The decision, announced on Instagram, raises questions about the future of the designer, who founded his label 27 years ago and has been Prada’s artistic director alongside Miuccia Prada since April 2020.
Advertising is in the image of his creations, all in minimalism. “The Spring-Summer 2023 collection marks the end of an extraordinary 27-year journey and the final season of the Raf Simons fashion brand.” It is thanks to these few lines published on Instagram on Monday, November 21 that the 54-year-old… The veteran Belgian designer has announced that he is ending his eponymous menswear label. All other posts on this account, which has 1.1 million followers, have been deleted. The Antwerp designer thanks his team, his colleagues as well as his “fans”. That will be it. the team said this post will be the only official communication from the brand.
New chapter?
Mysterious communication and speculation going well. In particular, on the future of the Belgian designer within the Prada label, whose artistic director is from April 2020 alongside the high priestess of Italian fashion, Miuccia Prada, who has completely reinvented and shaken the image of the bourgeois at home. 2000 If there is indeed an even distribution of power between these two famous names in fashion, the arrangement is unprecedented. And the announcement has now reignited rumors of the 73-year-old designer’s possible departure, with Raf Simons as his potential successor.
Before Prada, Raf Simons collaborated with Jil Sander, Dior after John Galliano left, and then Calvin Klein. During his three years as artistic director of the French house, from 2012 to 2015, the Belgian designer signed up to six collections a year. A heavy pace made even better by his motivation. “I had all the technical means to succeed, but I needed more time between sets to find inspiration,” he later admitted. I’m not the type that likes to do things quickly, ideas have to mature. The reasons, perhaps, for this new decision.
Source: Le Figaro
