Looks from the spring 2012 Jil Sander collection.

“When I was at industrial-design school, we were all expected to like the Memphis Group and Philippe Starck, but I’ve always been attracted to midcentury modernism. My favorite is the French designer Jean Royère. I love the marriage between different things in his work—the aspects of kitsch, premodernism, and modernism, along with an extreme femininity—but there’s also a robustness. Royère’s designs are very eclectic, but they all come from the world he has put together. His work has had a huge impact on me, but I’ve never bought any of it—it’s unaffordable. Recently, a Royère table came up at auction; the estimate was €12,000 to €15,000. I thought, That’s mine. Then I was on the phone with the auction house wondering if I should go up to €18,000. My God! I didn’t have time to say a thing. The thing went to €120,000!”

-Raf Simons, newly appointed artistic director of Christian Dior, in a recent interview with Alice Rawsthorn for W. Among the designer’s other favorite things, lest you want to send him a congratulatory gift: art by Sterling Ruby, Valentine Schlegel‘s ceramics, the architecture of John Lautner, the Todd Haynes film Safe, and vintage Margiela.