INSPIRATION IS EVERYWHERE
Rafe New York Spring/Summer 2018
I pull references from memory bank and start my research. Inspiration always comes from a variety of sources. Spring Summer ‘18 was a mélange of images from Slim Aaron’s book; “A Place in the Sun”, Yves Saint Laurent’s muse Loulou de la Falaise, a Fauvist painting by Andre Derain titled “Madame Matisse au Kimono”, Victor Vasarely’s Geometric Art and a recent trip to Holbox in Mexico to see the flamingos in their natural habitat.
When I was planning the photo shoot I kept looking at photos of Edie Sedgwick. I was looking for a model who could emulate her and I thought that Sophie Sumner would be perfect. We met last year when we were both in Manila and we stayed in touch in New York. She immediately agreed to do the shoot with me and I was pleased to find out that she was as obsessed with Edie as I was.
The motifs this season were all about the tropics— from flowers to birds. I’ve always loved tropical birds. I used to have a green parrot growing up and he was such a smart and funny creature with tons of personality. I chose a flamingo, a cockatoo and a macaw because visually they immediately transport you to a tropical paradise.
Designing Spring Summer is second nature for me due to my upbringing in the tropics. I love working with straw, shell and snakeskin; using them in ways that show off their inherent quality. The Rosie clutches are all hand-embroidered and molded into shape one at a time. Since each clutch is embroidered individually that means that you are guaranteed that not one of them will be exactly alike. That variation is something I appreciate in anything that is handmade.
My minaudieres are all painstakingly hand-crafted and depending on the intricacy of the design can take four to five days to complete each one. There’s a video on my site (www.rafe.com) that shows you the process. You should see it to fully appreciate the amount of labor that goes into each piece.
Rafe is exclusively available at Rustan’s Makati, Shangri-La and Cebu.
