Simone Rocha’s slot on the London Fashion Week schedule could very well be the work of a strategic mastermind. For several days in a row you see the same elements interpreted in different but not terribly different ways, and on the last day before Milan, Rocha comes along and throws innovation dust all over the place. Case in point number one: the designer’s addition of shininess to lace turned what would have been a pretty black lace suit into a really hot one. Case in point number two: instead of putting her florals in a print, Rocha embroidered them onto transparent raincoat material giving them a fetishised appeal. Case in point number three: she cut holes in ample skirts and traced them with pearls and played Joy Division. Enough said.
Rocha’s collection was based on the natural elements of the west her motherland, more specifically Connemara in Ireland. Sticking to black, greys, gold and white, and incorporating metallic and wet textures, she actually managed to make the whole thing look like glistening rocks under a grey sky, and for a collection that simultaneously embodied the vaguely religious and ‘old’ tone of Rocha’s work that itself was quite an accomplishment. You could say it rocked.
