Treat yourself to some whimsy
Simone Rocha collab with H&M is maximalist joy we need.
Like many, I have spent the past year mostly indoors, slowly falling under the spell of comfort. I’ve grown so used to forgiving, stretchy materials and clothes that don’t need to impress anyone. I can hardly remember the feeling of standing in a crowded room, let alone what it’s like to be dressed to the nines.
We don’t yet know what spring will look like and whether we’ll still be bound by restrictions that render anything fancier than a sweatsuit overkill. But we do know one thing: March brings H&M’s next big collaboration.
This year, the Swedish fashion behemoth has partnered with Simone Rocha, the Irish designer beloved for her quirkygirly-avant-garde mix of pearls, ruffles and lace. Rocha is celebrating a decade of her label and she’s always a favourite at London Fashion Week. Her work subverts traditional femininity in artful and edgy ways. Her use of oversized proportions and saccharine embellishments has paved the way for designers with a similar esthetic, like Molly Goddard and Danish darling Cecile Bahnsen. Rocha made adult-sized doll clothes look badass.
An H&M designer collaboration is like a new Coldplay album. Maybe you’re not a huge fan, but you’ll tune in (you’ll be bombarded by it anyway) to see what the fuss is about. It’s the mass-fashion equivalent of the Super Bowl, when even the most casual observers get into the spirit. For the style-obsessed, it’s a chance to size up the latest collection against past ones and map out a strategic plan of attack by credit card.
Over the years we’ve been spoiled by these kinds of flashy high-low partnerships, but H&M’s first-ever designer collaboration, with Karl Lagerfeld in 2004, was truly groundbreaking. It laid the foundation for the collaboration-heavy fashion model we have now and helped to democratize fashion.
When an H&M collection works, it really works. Its creations with Lanvin in 2010, Maison Margiela in 2013 and Erdem in 2017 remain in my memory because they perfectly distilled what those high-end labels did best while offering something fresh and new. It wasn’t about cheapening the work of runway designers, but breaking it down into its most inspiring components (beautiful prints, intriguing cuts, unexpected materials). A good H&M collab merges the fantastical with the attainable.
Each year brought a new designer to H&M’s racks (Isabel Marant, Alexander Wang, Versace, to name a few) and the hype grew and grew, with videos of shoppers storming stores after lining up overnight going viral. The spectacle of it all grew, too, as the annual launches turned into global events, with media, influencers and celebrities flying in from all over the world to witness the collections walk down runways in New York or Paris, or even at the Cannes Film Festival. One year, I flew to L.A. to attend the Erdem launch, for which H&M rented out a historic Beverly Hills mansion, tapped Grimes to perform and even commissioned Baz Luhrmann to create
a short film. And because the buzz relies upon manufactured scarcity, resale became standard practice, with prized pieces ending up on eBay , often selling for double or triple the original price.
And then, after all that anticipation and fuss, the excitement would fizz out like undrunk champagne, until next year.
There was no splashy designer collaboration in 2020, which is hardly surprising. The fashion industry was turned upside down by the pandemic, and we had nowhere to wear fancy or branded clothing, anyway. At first glance, the Simone Rocha H&M collaboration looks like a return to a pre-pandemic normal. Looking a little deeper, it feels like more.
When the lookbook images of the collection (which comes out on March 11) dropped in early February, it was like a rush of fresh air in a stuffy room. There they were: all the things we’ve denied ourselves for the past 12 months. Ruffles! Embellishment! Sheer tulle and beguiling
tartan. Impracticality and fantasy photographed on models with braided hair, standing next to big flower arrangements. I have no idea if the collaboration was dreamed up before the pandemic and then put on hold, or whether it was a conscious decision on Rocha’s and H&M’s part to bet on fashion for fashion’s sake. I hope it’s the latter.
There isn’t a single pair of joggers in this collection. The styling of the clothes is celebratory, maximalist: a sequined croptop layered over a fluttersleeved button-down, worn over a puffy skirt accessorized with bow-adorned socks and a headband crusted with fauxpearls. One bubble gum pink dress is embellished with two convex lines of crystals, which my co-worker called “boob eyebrows.” Without a doubt, these are clothes to be seen in.
In a press release, Rocha said that she hopes this collection “will be worn and treasured for years to come.” This is important. These types of buzzy collaborations tend to inspire a feverish
desire to overconsume, driving fast-fashion to produce more and more stuff. Anecdotally, I hardly saw any pieces from H&M’s past collaborations worn by anyone. Putting beautiful things out into the world doesn’t come without a cost — to our carbon footprint, to our water supply, to garment workers — the least we can do is take Rocha’s words to heart and treasure her work by wearing it. With the pandemic still with us, this collection will also launch in a much quieter fashion, without the usual pomp and circumstance (and waste). Maybe we don’t need a legion of influencers and an exotic location to make us dream about clothes?
The post-pandemic fashion landscape could be spectacular, or it could be tame and grey. I’m not naive enough to believe that buying a flowery dress will summon the next age of enlightenment. But, given the choice between an umpteenth pair of organic cotton sweatpants or a bow-adorned blouse, I know which way I’m leaning.