Paris Fashion Week 2013 Raf Simons Spring/Summer 2013, Menswear

Raf Simons headlined day one of the Paris menswear shows on Wednesday, sending out an urbane, playful look that showed a lot of leg, days before his hotly-waited debut as the top designer at Dior.

All but a handful of the Belgian designer's looks were built around bermuda shorts cut high on the thigh, and slashed at one side, paired with clean white shirts and single-breasted jackets, black patent brogues or sneakers.

Boxy white tunics or art-print T-shirts added to the contemporary feel of the collection -- at odds with the nostalgic, post-war inspiration behind many of the looks on the Milan catwalks last week and elsewhere in Paris on Wednesday.

Coats came in flower-prints, ultralight raincoats in pink or orange, while suits were dove grey or navy, with splashes of emerald and violet, a handful of slim cigarette pants and wide-legged ones thrown in with the shorts.

The colour scheme was muted at first, all blacks, whites, greys, midnight blue and forest green, eventually blossoming into spring with a staggering short pink marshmallow bomber jacket, tangerine, grapefruit and copper vibes, until a colourful floral yellow and blue motif spread on collars, elongated shirts and light overcoats.
An abstract approach to portraiture was detectable in a sleeveless shirt-dress, resurfacing memories of both Picasso’s deconstructed figures and Kandinsky’s treatment of colour.