Locked down in London... but Simone dreams of Ballinskelligs
SIMONE ROCHA may have descended from a designer deity but the daughter of the fêted John Rocha is certainly ploughing her own furrow in the fashion world.
Dublin-born Simone has spent lockdown in her adopted home of London with her partner Eoin McLoughlin and their daughter Valentine. But in conversation with high-end fashion destination site Browns, she says she has been yearning for the west of Ireland.
After 12 years of London living, Ireland is still her ‘motherland’, she admitted.
‘My partner is an Irishman and we’re both very connected to home: the people, the landscape, the attitude,’ she told the Browns website. ‘I’m British-educated – I came out of the MA at Central Saint Martins – but I’m Irish, I’m an Irish designer.
‘What’s incredible about home is the influence of the hand. I think you can see it in anyone’s work who comes out of Ireland... Things being made by hand, an understanding of textiles.’
On the topic of lockdown, she told BrownsFashion. com: ‘Eoin said, “This is like a bad holiday!” We’re now working, but the first month was spent in our lovely back garden, planting and weeding and seeding, pretending we were in Ballinskelligs, a really remote area in Co. Kerry. So, Eoin did his watercolours, I did loads of cooking and we were just dreaming of Ballinskelligs.’
Indeed, London life has not dimmed her grá of Ireland and some of her homegrown heroes evidently take pride of place in her home – as a portrait of Shane MacGowan hangs on her wall among pictures by Irish photographer Perry Ogden.
‘Perry Ogden is a really old family friend; he and my dad used to play football together. But probably the most Irish thing Eoin and I do is listen to a huge amount of Irish music, like Lankum – drone music; it must sound so twee to the neighbours. And I read Irish novels nearly all the time,’ she said.
While couture runs through her veins, Simone still has her feet – or in this case wellies – planted firmly on the green grass of her Hackney home where she has happily spent the last few months tending to her garden, ‘pretending to be in Ireland’.
Such is Simone’s sartorial success, her clothes proudly sell on sites like Browns alongside the likes of Prada, Gucci and a host of other power-fashion houses. She also has stores in London, New York and Hong Kong.
Her latest spring-summer collection is, she says, inspired by old Irish traditions on St Stephen’s Day.
‘In Ireland, we call Boxing
Day “St Stephen’s Day” or “Wren Day”. The tradition is that you hunt a wren, but it’s evolved into a day that’s almost like trick-or-treating – it can be a bit raucous. Traditional wrens dress up in camouflage – in hay, and hats and raffia, all wrapped over their bodies.’
She added: ‘I felt I needed more of a “grassroots” collection this spring.’
And while her father’s influence is evident in her designs, her mother Odette is her business partner and sometimes inspiration. ‘My mum’s from Birr, Co. Offaly, and we started talking about the punky wren boys we knew. I ended up speaking to lots of women, like the Irish actor Fiona Shaw, about their memories of the wren boys – and the actors Simone Kirby, Olwen Fouéré and Jessie Buckley ended up walking in the show.’
‘I listen to a lot of Irish music’
‘I needed to go more “grassroots”’