Waiting for the show to begin with satisfactory knowledge that I would love it... (Photograph by Yara de Nicola for Self Service)
I'm the sort of ditz that partakes in looking the part rather than actually doing. No, that isn't a deluded statement about being a model. What I mean is, give me a sporting activity and I'll go get the cute outfit - just don't ask me to go anywhere near bats, balls or both. Give me tennis and I'll come up with a Suzanne Lenglen-inspired outfit and do jettez about on the court as opposed to acing anything. Give me football and I'll go for some crazy patterned goalee kit (won't save any goals of course…). Give me ski and I have Jil Sander's A/W 11-12 collection to look to for the sort of ensembles that would be fit, not for going down slopes but for the kitsch afterparty at the chalet with some boozed up hot chocolate. A champion's skiier's trophy wife's wardrobe if you will…
Not that Raf Simons was purely looking at 60s apres-ski chic for that would be too direct and simplistic a correlation. Photographers like Louise Wolfe-Dahl and Diane Arbus also cropped up and I suppose elements of those frozen-in-time iconic portraits of women that infiltrate into this collection, except Simons brings it all to life to really makes those trapeze and ovoid shapes swing into action as opposed to being suspended in time.
The bright tones of the S/S 11 collection still lingered on in graphic print or in solids in the sleek hooded sweaters (Key to perfect hood wearing? Guido Palau wrapped and lacquered hair helmet) that are of course key to the 60s champion skiier's wife look...
The rest of the collection was then injected with the wintry hues that suit the collection's look to the past.
I'm particularly in love with this tinsel beaded oversized sweater that is best seen from all angles to fully appreciate the volume built in...
His way of maximising something that appears reduced is a masterful stroke and given that I saw the models going around twice, it was only then that I appreciated the way Simons drew lines on the body so that the curvature of everything was just so, referencing of course 60s Balenciaga but making those lines work extra harder because of his choice of fabrics. Such as making up egg-shaped dresses and skirts with rounded-shoulder tops in a fabric that looked like sleeping bag polythene.
Then there was the floral print, another off-the-cuff addition that strangely fits in much like it did when it popped up last season and this time round feel in with Simons' take on 60s trapeze like a dream team combo. I ain't bothering with the outfit if the matching wedges aren't in the equation by the by…
(All archive images from Jalou Archives)
I've found this season's collections at times too direct in their reference and reverance to the past but it was never the case with this Jil Sander collection. Some people felt differently of course but it was a good thing not to have any immediate or direct cinematic references in my head because for me, it was as if I was seeing clips of a bygone era that had then been re-configured and warped by a progressive video artist. Familiar but altered.
