The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
LONDON, United Kingdom — Simone Rocha's last collection, delivered mere weeks after the birth of her daughter, was dark, troubled. You struggled to imagine how she'd explain it to Valentine in later years. Or maybe she'd just show her the collection she offered on Saturday night, a riposte to darkness, a visible token of a woman who'd found herself again. "Coming home," she called it. "I felt like myself again."
In Rocha’s case, that idea has such a rich, pagan resonance that you could only wonder at the prettiness of the ritual: the cloque flowers, the
. But Celt to the core she is, and there was a strong sense of the earth spirit in her show. She cited Jackie Nickerson’s photographic essay
Farm
ADVERTISEMENT
as an influence. Some models had leather sacks slung across their shoulders. The oblique show notes referred to “Paul Henry's potato diggers”. In that artist’s wonderful paintings, there is often the solitary figure of a woman bent under the weight of agricultural labour.
Here, it was the art of the fashion designer to transmute that image, to transcend physical toil with airy, aspirational, dream-like confections of tulle and
. Rocha compounded the sheerness with plastic, with scatters of sequins so everything shone. And she used her signature
broderie anglaise
in the airiest way imaginable, with the styling of the show slinging coats (just as airy) off one shoulder and belting them at the waist. That dishabille quality was maybe the clearest expression of a woman who was reclaiming her own sensuality after the process of childbirth.
It’s a subtle thing in a Simone Rocha show, but the music is a cue to the reaction she wants to elicit. Irish musician MMOTHS supplied a soundtrack that evolved from pretty pastoral to soaring, savage exultation. That music said it all. This is me and I'm back.
From where aspirational customers are spending to Kering’s challenges and Richemont’s fashion revival, BoF’s editor-in-chief shares key takeaways from conversations with industry insiders in London, Milan and Paris.
BoF editor-at-large Tim Blanks and Imran Amed, BoF founder and editor-in-chief, look back at the key moments of fashion month, from Seán McGirr’s debut at Alexander McQueen to Chemena Kamali’s first collection for Chloé.
Anthony Vaccarello staged a surprise show to launch a collection of gorgeously languid men’s tailoring, writes Tim Blanks.
BoF’s editors pick the best shows of the Autumn/Winter 2024 season.