>> Raf Simons had a tough act to follow after his stunning fringe-filled Spring 2009 Jil Sander collection, but he pulled it off.  The first half of the Fall 2009 show was filled with simple dresses, tailored coats, trousers, and flats in a predominantly neutral palette, and then a flash of colored strobe lights came on and the real experimentation began.  As Cathy Horyn put it, Raf "tried to defy gravity" — stunning curvilinear shapes poked out from the hip of a dress or snaked around the neck of a coat; a contrastingly bright yellow peeked out from the lining of a dress.  Two pieces will for sure get play — the structured orange dress on Vlada Roslykova and the black dress on Nimue Smit with asymmetrical shoulders — padding on one side, points on the other.  The only question that remains: why was Lithuanian newcomer Auguste Tomasuite (aka Auguste Abeliunaite) crying on the runway?
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