ROCHA’S ON A ROLL
Dubliner Simone is featuring on all the major red carpets this awards season with her recent Gaultier collaboration establishing her among design royalty
DUBLIN-BORN Simone Rocha is enjoying a stellar year. In January, she was the guest designer at Jean Paul Gaultier for his haute couture fashion show, at which her collection received rave reviews.
In February, the unveiling of her autumn/winter 2024 collection at London Fashion Week was one of the ‘hot tickets’ and impossible to get into. Off-catwalk, her designs have been worn to multiple award ceremonies — by Yvonne McGuinness, wife of Cillian Murphy, to the SAG Awards, Diane Kruger to the César Film Awards, Ruth Negga to the African American Film Critics Association Awards, and Paul Mescal and Rosamund Pike to the BAFTA parties.
Pike also wore a ravishing Rocha midi-dress to the pre-BAFTA Tea Party, while Stateside, Beanie Feldstein wore a Rocha ball gown to the premiere of her new film Drive Away Dolls.
On Rocha’s own ‘frow’ — that’s front row to the uninitiated — Kylie Jenner wore a nude Rocha dress at the Gaultier show in Paris in January while Alexa Chung wore her bright red mini-dress with dramatic bow at the LFW show. If stars in your clothes are an indication of the buzz around a designer, then Rocha is on a definite roll.
All the praise and publicity are quite the coup for the designer, who turns 38 this year and made her London Fashion Week debut in 2010. However, she continues in her signature low-key style to focus on her work and let the clothes do the talking.
In another first for her brand, Rocha also just announced the publication of a new book, a monograph reviewing the first decade of her design career with the famed art publisher Rizzoli. It will feature imagery of Rocha’s creations as well as contributions from collaborators, friends, family and image makers. It will be published in September and confirms Rocha’s burgeoning reputation in the international fashion world.
The Gaultier couture show gave her a major boost and has brought her name to a much wider audience. She will now hope to capitalise on her new status to grow her brand and explore fresh opportunities.
Rocha has always designed with a heightened romantic aesthetic and typically blends craft techniques — lace, crochet and hand knits — with tailoring and evening wear, which display her interest in exploring dramatic volume and architectural silhouettes. Favourite motifs she returns to include ribbons, pearls, red flowers, lacing and cocoon shapes.
She has collaborated previously with brands such as J Brand, Moncler and H&M, and more collaborations seem likely after the success of her Gaultier guest spot.
Rocha’s recent AW24 London show was staged in the oldest church in the city, St Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield. It was a fitting setting for the collection titled The Wake, which explored death and mourning garments, particularly those of Queen Victoria, which Rocha had access to in the royal archive at Hampton Court Palace.
The collection was signature Rocha — a fusion of fragility, transparency, demure silhouettes and beautiful detail all with an underlying sense of vulnerability blended with resilience. The designer looked at how the superstructure of clothing holds and contains more than just our bodies
Could someone dare to wear one to next week’s Oscars?
— it can also hold repressed emotions and fears.
All the big themes like sex and death and love and grief were explored via a collection of 50-plus outfits that displayed her growing mastery of both tailoring and softer garments.
The colour palette featured black, nude, ivory, icy blue and vivid red, with silhouettes veering from hourglass waspies to cocooning capes and enveloping coats.
Fabrics featured included wool, silk, tulle, brocade, taffeta, faux fur and velvet with a lush, tactile feel. These were clothes as armour against grief and a hostile world.
A statement satin coat with lacing detail and curved sleeves and a sheer midi dress with voluminous sleeves and embellished breasts both stood out and are likely to grace red carpets in the future — could someone dare to wear one to next week’s Oscars?
Models sported delicate rose stems in place of their eyebrows, embellished ear cuffs and Victorian inspired rolled hair to finish the dramatic look.
The show was the last of a triptych of shows: the first, The Dress Rehearsal, was Rocha’s spring/ summer 2024 show; the second, The Procession, was her Jean Paul Gaultier haute couture show in January; and now this show, The Wake, is the conclusion. However, it is only the start of Rocha’s evolution as she develops as a designer who not only makes beautiful clothes but also explores femininity and female archetypes.