Raf Simons is the king of fashion right now. His clothing is emulated everywhere (and he knows it), and his ideas about youth culture, recontextualization, collaboration, and art resonate around the fashion world. How did a Belgian guy with no experience in fashion become the man to beat?

The transformation from cult alt designer to industry leader took place over the past decade or so, through Simons’s beloved, sportily elegant collections at Jil Sander; his star turn as a cerebral couturier at Dior, complemented with a humanizing documentary; and his current post as creative impresario at Calvin Klein, where he was the first designer since Klein himself to take home menswear and womenswear designer of the year awards from the CFDA in the same year. But before he was a German minimalist, Parisian mastermind, or an American iconoclast, he was a rarely seen Belgian designer with an eponymous menswear collection that took men’s fashion to new, furiously energized places. At his eponymous label, he introduced a vigorously graphic approach that, over the past 20 years, has made fashion with a streetwise bent the official look of menswear.

Among the specific trends and items we have Simons to thank for are the square bare men’s tank top; the proliferation of collaged found graphics; the high-waisted, dramatically pleated pant; the accessorized MA-1 jacket; and the super-skinny black suit. Those are the facts, but there’s also a lot of feeling.

Founded in 1995, Raf Simons, the brand, was borne from his desire to give up the solitary practices of industrial and furniture design for the collaborative efforts of fashion. Simons trained the fashion crowd to see runway shows as representing a spirit, a moment, an attitude. Many of his early collections recontextualized pieces you would already know: the bomber jacket associated with skinheads; the balaclava with criminals; or the corporate uniform of white shirts and black suits. These he mashed up with remnants of his own life and obsessions. His idols are worn on sleeves, literally, and his personal passions bleed through in the music that plays at his shows, the books and art installations he organizes, and the films he directs. And yet, somehow, he is not nostalgic, pushing the limits of how we dress and what we could be.