Runway Review — Jil Sander Menswear Fall/Winter 2012

Jil Sander Fall/Winter 2012 by Raf Simons

Graphic and painting courtesy of Disco—theque.

When it comes to discussing Raf’s most iconic collections, you’d have to list a lot of shows before you find a Jil Sander menswear show on the list. They don’t have the mythical elevation of his eponymous shows, the glamour of Dior, or the sheer cultural zeitgeist-driving ability of his Calvin Klein 205W39 NYC collections. But there’s something in these later Jil Sander collections — before he achieved the level of designer-celebrity where we see Raf really start to balance the minimalism of Jil Sander with his own design language — where you can start to piece together the road map for where Raf headed throughout the 2010s. And though it may not move the needle as much as his early 2000s work, it’s still a vital part of Raf Simons’ history.

This show takes place inside a parking garage that’s been deeply sanitized, cleansed of all cars, and with a black rubber mat covering the floor. Every mention of cars (or in this case, a lack of cars) alongside Raf’s name recalls his quote in Frank Ocean’s Boys Don’t Cry magazine, where he called Ocean’s car obsession cliche — a deep subconscious straight boy fantasy, and a classic trope of masculinity. Billboard’s Brett Berk puts it best: “All cars are drag. They’re a costume we put on to signal the world how we want to be perceived, a cloak of invisibility, a winking (or sometimes not so winking) commentary on identity.” So then what does it mean when you provide the backdrop to set up this trope, but then never give it the power to fully express this sentiment? At first, I read it as a sort of unresolved tension, like you’re waiting for a beat drop that never comes. Simons declares in the show notes that what you see is who you are, so the background and tense music become a sort of priming effect for the sinister looks that follow. The majority of the garments throughout the show are leather, which has its own history as a sexual material, which is even further elucidated with the references to Steve McQueen’s Shame that take place throughout the show, such as the accompanying music and overall aesthetic that defines the collection. 

A quick viewing of Shame’s trailer tells you all you need to know about the film and its relevance to this collection; 1%er Brandon (Michael Fassbender) has a horrific, self destructive sex addiction that takes the place of his desire for intimacy, spurred on by a mysterious, unnamed past conflict. Shame is very upfront about its intentions and central conflict, and you can’t help but extrapolate this back to Jil Sander Fall/Winter 2012. All of the show elements have a cold, distant feeling to them, and Shame’s main character, Brandon, would look at home as a model in this collection.

Jil Sander RTW Fall/Winter 2012 Look 12, and Jil Sander Menswear Fall/Winter 2012 Look 1

This show shines brightest when placed in the context of the Jil Sander AW12 Ready-To-Wear collection, which celebrates the day in the life of a perfect relationship. The collections are polar opposites, but there’s a clear line between the two. Look 12 of the RTW collection and Look One of the menswear collection have nearly identical cuts and shaping to them, but the RTW jacket is undoubtedly more approachable.

Jil Sander RTW Fall/Winter 2012 Look 22 and Jil Sander Menswear Fall/Winter 2012 Look 14

RTW Look 22 and Menswear Look 14 both provide takes on collar-less outerwear, and once again It’s the light to the all-encompassing darkness that defines the menswear collection, a theme that ran throughout the end of Raf’s tenure at Jil Sander. So while the womenswear collection shows relationships as the joining of two people, the menswear collection depicted these same relationships as mutually destructive

Novella Magazine described the RTW collection by saying, “Raf created a world where clothing seemed to caress the models in the simplest and most sensual way. A collection which grounded in the softest pastels and neutrals, was offset by striking flashes of metallics, daring cuts, and tasteful glimpses of nudity.” That these two collections can be so diametrically opposed to each other yet still so clearly connected speaks volumes to the level Raf had reached by the end of his Jil Sander tenure.

Jil Sander Menswear Fall/Winter 2012 Look 18

The corseted leather trench coat of Look 18 is perhaps the best evidence of this Sander-Simons hybrid. You have the minimalism and look of Jil Sander, but with the tailoring and brilliance of Simons. Simons creates a sort of androgynous look that also ever-so-slightly espouses the traditional “androgyny” look by choosing a more traditionally masculine looking male and fabric (leather) and flipping it into something much more feminine with the addition of the corset. If it was a pure Simons show, you’d imagine the moment would be more raw — perhaps the finish on the jacket wouldn’t be so sleek, or the jacket would be unfinished in some way, or the model would look much less healthy — but that’s why this collection is so important in the story of Raf Simons. The creative partnership of a house and designer works best when it’s a mutual push-pull relationship and can create something that wouldn’t have happened without both parties being mutually involved. And that’s exactly what we got here.

The Fall/Winter 2012 collection was designed at the height of the Occupy movement, and the Vogue review of this show argues that each of these models has the same soulless professionalism of the architects of the 2008 financial crisis. I’m not entirely certain that this was Raf’s intention, but the effect is the same regardless. There’s of course a certain kind of irony in depicting the rich as evil while simultaneously creating products that only they can afford, which is the fundamental paradox of this sort of fashion-as-political-statements. How successful can your critique of the 1% be when you’re the one dressing them, the one profiting off of them? 

This show marks Raf’s last menswear shows at Jil Sander. In so many ways, they felt like the little brother to the womenswear shows of Jil Sander, or the menswear shows of his own eponymous label. Yet there’s something so endearing about these shows. These two shows start to feel more like a collaboration than pure Jil Sander shows, the design equivalent of placing black and white next to each other rather than mixing them together to make gray.