All eyes were on Raf Simons this evening as Dior’s new designer showed his own spring 2013 collection to an eager audience (and the inevitable comparisons to Jil Sander last week). It’s yet to be determined if he’ll also take over menswear duties at Dior, and while we admire Kris Van Assche’s utilitarian approach at Dior Homme, the house might feel compelled to instate Raf Simons at that helm, too, considering his white-hot cachet at the moment. In fact they may have already decided.

The attention doesn’t seem to be getting to Simons though, as his collection rarely veered from what we’ve come to know as “classic Raf.” That is to say, expertly tailored jackets tweaked to extremes, in this feminized with a pink palette or liberty prints. These jackets, which began to resemble a housecoat or a painter’s frock as the show wore on, were paired with matching shorts slit provocatively at the thigh, either in the front or at the sides, and rendered in rich blues and hunter green.

Simons also returned to ideas he previously explored during his tenure at Jil Sander, like simplified topcoats, surrealist print tees and homogenized styling. With less than a week until his Dior debut at Paris couture, it was the perfect collection to show that he does not intend to radically depart from his trademarks.