Raf Simons
Story

Cuddling with the pigheaded fellow: Why should someone who accoutres the most beautiful men and women now also accoutre cosy pillows? A story about Raf Simons, who is head designer at Jil Sander, Dior and Calvin Klein. He’s the mastermind of the Danish fabric manufacturer Kvadrat who, together with Simons, accoutres furniture and models in equal measure.
If you are a man who likes wearing one of these extremely narrow suits with a short coat – congratulations, it was invented by Raf Simons! Well, allowedly also by Helmut Lang, but that’s a different story.
However, his name is rather unpopular among the public community. Not in the world of fashion, though: due to his very first collection and provocative outfits – basically men in disguise –, the Belgian got the sobriquet “fashionable terrorist”.
Simons is tremendously versatile; his sneaker designs for Adidas, for example, are truly legendary. In 2014, he began to accoutre furniture as well, working with fabrics he also used in his men’s collection of the same year and later Dior.
The Belgian is a pigheaded fellow and, as the FAZ said, also one of the three most influential designers of his generation. An avant-gardist whose suits and dresses don’t only fit ladies and gentlemen, but also furniture and accessories.

„I was raised in a very happy nest by very happy people, and I like to think that those are enough ingredients to make me succeed at Dior.“

Since Simons started as a furniture designer in the early 90’s in Genk, it only seemed natural to him to design – together with Kvadrat – high-quality fabrics for furniture as well, using colours and colour combinations that are more fashionable.
He encountered the Kvadrat while looking for new fabric ideas for Jil Sander. A stylist drew his attention to the Danish manufacturers, and Simons was immediately passionate about them: Bouclé, Tweed and Melange – what else could a designer wish for?
However, he does drive his partners crazy sometimes since it can take him ages to make a decision about the colour of a specific fabric. In the world of fashion, it’s okay for designs to be ephemeral, but furniture? Here it would be a catastrophe to pick the wrong colour, for example.

It was the flamboyant nautical fabric by Franco Albinis which inspired Simons. The beautiful stripes in the style of Albinis’ armchair “Poltrana Seggiovia” from 1940 can now be found in Simons’ fabric collection from 2016.

Kvadrat’s textiles are produced in the world’s highest-wage country: Norway. The sophisticated Danish work at the traditional weaving mill “Innvik Sellgren” where they design fabrics specifically for tailor-made furniture.

Raf Simons and Kvadrat design for Cassina, Fritz Hansen, Cappellini and many more: their fabrics are in no way inferior to design classics such as the “Lady Armchair” by Marco Zanuso, the “daybed PK80” by Poul Kjaerholm or the “Bird Chaiselounge” by Tom Dixon.

„I could not sit on a piece of furniture and feel comfortable when it’s this new, high-tech, shiny, glam-impact fabric, it just doesn’t feel right. It’s something I think that Danish design never had. Danish design always had that warmth to it, that human aspect.”