hapsical

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Do you mean FW08 for the Raf? FW09 won't hit the shops until this summer..

Either way it's cool..

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to be honest your saying liberty is great but that room with the prps and the middling 'streetwear' is absolute trash.

the best thing about liberty is the issey miyake fete and other interesting lines up on the womens floor.

I think their main men's designer room (Alexander McQueen, Rick, Comme, Marni, Burberry Prorsum, Viktor & Rolf etc.) is good, and the men's formalwear too, which mixes the trad. British brands with ones like Lanvin and Jil Sander.. I agree it's not really the place for streetwear, though they do have good selection of contemporary brands like APC, Folk and YMC.

In fact, nowhere in London really excites me in terms of retail, I'm just saying Liberty is a great deal better than Harrods.

Regarding the RO shop.. there was an interview with him in the a/w 08 AnOther Man magazine saying that said his shop would open soon on South Audley Street, but I have heard nothing about it since (you'd think they'd have done a big PR push around the opening), and it's not listed on his website with the other stores.. then again Jil Sander quietly opened on Bond Street recently and I had heard nothing about that until I happened to be passing by. I'll check if I'm nearby, but I'm not bothered enough to go especially looking.

EDIT: just Googled, latest seems to be opening in APRIL - doubt that's set in stone though, could well be delayed more.

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it's a bit of a mess.

You're right - I suppose my point is, in terms of more affordable Raf (and I certainly don't pretend to be able to afford much mainline stuff),I would prefer a better secondary line of clothes (which has more of the qualities of the mainline) to more collaborations with other brands - but if selling Linda Farrow sunglasses or Eastpak bags is going to keep the mainline commercially viable, particularly in these tough times for 'luxury brands', I'm all for it.

Raf by Raf used to be more like that, but now it's mostly very average pieces which hardly seem 'designed', but have big price mark-ups because of the label. I think it's become a dull 'diffusion line,' when it should be a brand which has its own identity (albeit within the constraints of being a cheaper version of a mainline), like DRKSHDW does. At the moment, it's too dull-black-coat/jeans/sweater which happen to have the right name on the label. I see hardly any connection between Raf by Raf and the mainline, and it hardly seems like he uses it to support the mainline or play around with new ideas first.

The risk with collaborations is that they start to 'devalue' the brand if there are too many. I suppose he has to make money somehow, given how notoriously unprofitable ready-to-wear mainlines often are, and maybe we should be grateful that he has gone for collaborations instead of fragrances, eyewear etc, it's just the collaborations can't raise my interest (exception: SS08 Eastpak) and I find it hard to connect them with his amazing mainline stuff that I seriously covet

Maybe it's just because I'm a fashion snob, and brands like Eastpak and Fred Perry don't interest me much, but if it was, say, Raf Simons x Valextra then we'd be talking..