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by Eugene Rabkin
"This past summer Raf Simons held a show in New York City’s Chinatown that was ostensibly based on the movie Blade Runner. The presentation had plenty of Runner-esque elements; the darkness, the wetness of the film were reflected in the umbrellas and the raincoats that Simons showed. But there was one element in the collection that made no sense at all – the New Order and Joy Division graphics that Simons used throughout the show have nothing to do with Ridley Scott’s iconic sci-fi film, at least I could discern no connection there. Simons showed the same graphics by Peter Saville, whom he is friends with, that he showed in his seminal Fall/Winter 2003 collection, “Closer, “ named after a Joy Divison album.
Then in September, to coincide with the New York fashion week, Helmut Lang, the brand that has been thoroughly degraded after the designer’s exit and is now grasping for straws in order to find identity, reissued fifteen iconic pieces of Lang’s designs. These were pretty straightforward copies of the Lang originals and are still sold on the Helmut Lang website.
Later that month Ralph Lauren re-released complete copies of its 1992 Polo “Stadium” collection, twelve styles in total. Everything, of course, was limited edition, accompanied with the de rigueur media hype.
Behind these seemingly disparate events lies something bigger than the mere spirit of nostalgia. Nostalgia is all fine and dandy, and we often love going back to our formative years – it’s lovely and quite innocent in the realm of fashion, unlike say in the realm of history or politics. What unites the three examples above is that all of the originals now fetch hefty prices on the secondary market. A Raf Simons parka with the New Order graphic from 2003 can fetch a seller anywhere between $10,000 and $20,000. Old Helmut Lang bombers and biker jackets go in the thousands, and so do the pieces from the Polo’s Stadium collection."
Full article on SZ-MAG
"This past summer Raf Simons held a show in New York City’s Chinatown that was ostensibly based on the movie Blade Runner. The presentation had plenty of Runner-esque elements; the darkness, the wetness of the film were reflected in the umbrellas and the raincoats that Simons showed. But there was one element in the collection that made no sense at all – the New Order and Joy Division graphics that Simons used throughout the show have nothing to do with Ridley Scott’s iconic sci-fi film, at least I could discern no connection there. Simons showed the same graphics by Peter Saville, whom he is friends with, that he showed in his seminal Fall/Winter 2003 collection, “Closer, “ named after a Joy Divison album.
Then in September, to coincide with the New York fashion week, Helmut Lang, the brand that has been thoroughly degraded after the designer’s exit and is now grasping for straws in order to find identity, reissued fifteen iconic pieces of Lang’s designs. These were pretty straightforward copies of the Lang originals and are still sold on the Helmut Lang website.
Later that month Ralph Lauren re-released complete copies of its 1992 Polo “Stadium” collection, twelve styles in total. Everything, of course, was limited edition, accompanied with the de rigueur media hype.
Behind these seemingly disparate events lies something bigger than the mere spirit of nostalgia. Nostalgia is all fine and dandy, and we often love going back to our formative years – it’s lovely and quite innocent in the realm of fashion, unlike say in the realm of history or politics. What unites the three examples above is that all of the originals now fetch hefty prices on the secondary market. A Raf Simons parka with the New Order graphic from 2003 can fetch a seller anywhere between $10,000 and $20,000. Old Helmut Lang bombers and biker jackets go in the thousands, and so do the pieces from the Polo’s Stadium collection."
Full article on SZ-MAG