Tue 20th September
Pretty can have a tough edge, but you don’t expect to see it at Simone Rocha, whose fans, filing into her show at the Old Bailey, looked like living dolls, in their babydoll organza layers and pearl headbands.
But Rocha knows that sugar needs spice. In the past, she’s flirted with latex and biker leathers, this season she embraced the flight jacket in all its glorious unisex utility. She elongated it, puffed it out, ballooned it, made it in rosebud festooned tulle and loaded it up with jet-bead embroidery. Meanwhile, her fragile, puff-sleeve dresses were criss-crossed with adjustable parachute tapes. Ravishing, fragile, yet such a strong statement, Rocha was in a roll.
The other big news was the launch of Simone Rocha menswear, which follows much the same formula as her womenswear – pushing proportions, mixing flounced shirting with utility jackets, pairing precious fabrics and flight suit trousers – all of which would look just as divine on the girls as it did the boys. Poetic and powerful. Rocha nailed it.
Photography by Ben Broomfield.
