Style That Bites With Calvin Klein’s Jaws-Inspired SS18 Show

Raf Simons is into American cinema.

We know that from the popcorn apocalypse at last season’s Calvin Klein 205W39NYC’s show. We know it from the coterie of A-listers that often pack the front row, as they did last night at the brand’s SS19 show: Millie Bobby Brown, Mia Goth, Jake Gyllenhaal, Julianne Moore, Saoirse Ronan (it’s a long list…).

And now we know it from the blood-red set and eerie ocean backdrop of the SS19 collection, borrowed the movie Jaws (the 1975 Spielberg classic responsible for our collective fear of water - seriously, even indoor pools).

Danger has always been an attractive prospect. Not just for Simons. Remember in July, when an Insta-model was bitten by a shark while posing for a risqué photo?

‘Beauty is around us and it can often turn into disaster,’ Simons said backstage at the show, and he could’ve just have easily been talking about that Insta-gaff as the SS19 looks.

It’s dangerous out there, folks. In Blockbuster thrillers, and out here in the ‘real’ world. That much was clear in the shark-bite cut-outs in sorbet yellow and ditsy-print skirts - everyday staples. With a literal bite, obviously.

That’s Simons’ style. Make the attractive a little ‘off’; riff-off the tension between high and low, of the reassuringly familiar and uncomfortable.

Look at the (nearly) twee jacquard dresses with XL bows, their tie-dye prints bleeding out into ambiguous florals, blood spots and ikat patterns (a type of resistance-dyeing, so there we go again with the ‘tensions’, Simons hamming that home from the base up).

Forget cinematic auteurs, here’s our fashion one, weaving esoteric references into the easily recognisable (who hasn’t seen Jaws?). Simons dresses character; there’s narrative. It’s easy to be a sucker for him, and right-hand man and fellow CK creative director, Pieter Mulier, with their mille-feuille messaging (peel back the layers and find substance in their styles).

Or you’d hope. Because maybe that’s the message here. Don’t trust surface as indicative of substance; it belies the potential shit-storm underneath (an immaculate veneer can't vouch for integrity. Just look at politics on both sides of the Atlantic).

Where better to make that clear than in the corridors of an American high school, also referenced, with boys in tight leather-look suits, among girls in borrowed oversized knits and prom-style jackets. Don’t be/ date that guy. Or at least find out if he’s smart first.

You don’t have to worry about that here. Simons is smart. It’s why he’s at the helm of a label celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, steeped in American history, inspired by and influencing the States’ style.

It’s why sales are up 18% in the second quarter of 2018. It why you’ll want those scuba-skirts and chain-strap handbags. It’s why we’re looking forward to SS19’s sequel.