A shark and a cougar: two of the most iconic predators of American pop culture, and both muses for Raf Simons’ spring Calvin Klein 205W39NYC collection.
Since he arrived at the brand, Simons has used his runway to examine the American psyche by studying its archetypes and iconography. Already, he’s looked at the American West and the Hollywood horror genre versus the American Dream, his creative dissertations typically playing superficial pleasantry against warped underbelly.
This time out, the subject was killer instinct, with one beast who devours beachgoers and another who would eat her own young for lunch, only she doesn’t get away with it. The attraction for the designer? Both “Jaws” and “The Graduate,” as Simons’ show notes decoded, “represent transgression, the idea of the predator, and a fundamental questioning of authority — a rebellion that is quintessentially American.”
Simons showed at the West 39th Street building housing the brand’s headquarters; mercifully, reports of a New Jersey trek were fake news. Arriving guests found none of the kitchen-sink miscellany of the Sterling Ruby reveries that Simons has previously commissioned. Rather, the space was devoid of decoration but for ominous red overhead lights that cast an eerie pall. The show lights came up
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