A new exhibition by the fashion designer Simone Rocha explores the “challenges of femininity” through the work of contemporary artists. She speaks to Grace Banks about the parallels between the art she’s chosen for the show and her own luxury label
“I always feel like when I design a collection, it has this real tension between femininity, and the highs and lows that come with it” Simone Rocha tells me – “it’s the same thing I’m interested in with contemporary art, this contrast of naivety and reality, and how they can work together”.
Since launching her eponymous label, Rocha has rapidly grown her audience by designing ready-to-wear collections that have both tapped into and side-eyed extreme femininity in clothing. Rocha grew up in Ireland in the 1980s and 1990s and has always been fascinated with the tensions, challenges and contradictions of modern femininity. It’s a subject she never tires of, revisiting the theme season after season in her fashion label. “For example” she says, “in my current collection I reference communion and confirmation in Ireland with white lace, but then that’s balanced out with the red knee high PVC boots. There are all these different religious undertones and undercurrents in my background, and I think that has been fed into my work”.
Rocha’s latest strand in her study of conflicted femininity is the exhibition Girls Girls Girls, launched in tandem with the global drop of her Spring/Summer 2022 collection, at Lismore Castle in Waterford, Ireland. The exhibition features the work of a group of artists handpicked by Rocha who “challenge and engage with femininity and its subversive characteristics”. The show features art by Cindy Sherman, Louise Bourgeois, Luo Yang and Petra Collins, chosen for their ability to engage with each other in a gallery space.
Of course, a reflection into the knotty aspects of womanhood is nothing new for the designer. Since 2010 Rocha has created collections that channel a dual character of part elegant goth, part moody The Secret Garden character. This fusion has earned her a loyal fanbase, with her pieces being worn by FKA Twigs, Chloe Sevigny, Diane Kruger and Alexa Chung amongst others. Rihanna has incorporated multiple archive pieces of Rocha’s into her maternity wardrobe over the last month.
Whether it’s a black floral tea dress or a puff sleeve leather jacket, Rocha’s line maintains a meticulous balance between traditional femininity and extreme structure. This balance is reflected in her choice of artists for Girls Girls Girls, where a black and white photograph by Cindy Sherman from her Bus Riders series shows the artist in a summer dress and heels looking confrontationally into the camera with a cigarette in her mouth, a pair of high heels rendered utterly sexless in animal teat fur material by Dorothy Cross in Stilettos, and Kim and Kanye in an awkward kiss in Sophie Barber’s Kim and Kanye by Juergen Teller Again.
I ask if growing up in Catholic Ireland before the legalisation of abortion has impacted her work. “Growing up in Ireland in that context, even if your family weren’t Catholic, it was a heavy presence. In my collection it’s in the colours, these kind of christening shades of white lace which I’ve offset with a darker mood in the knee high boots”.
How does it feel to have blazed a trail in the type of complicated femininity that has struck a chord worldwide? “The way I design is how I’ve felt since I was a child, a teenager”, she says – “I’ve always been attracted to the strength within femininity, and I have to admit when I came out of college and started showing, it definitely did feel like what I was doing was incredibly different to what was already on the fashion landscape. But I always wanted to show that what appears as extremely feminine, can be incredibly strong too”.
For Rocha, sustainability is more than sourcing and supply chain, it’s the belief that a collection’s longevity shouldn’t be limited to seasons and years. “I’m not really interested in designing collections that go out of fashion, it’s not about a print that’s not fashionable after a season anymore” she says, “my collections are made to be re-worn, sustainability has always been really important to me. The idea of investing in fashion and wearing it for just a season doesn’t make much sense to me”, she says. “The way people shop is changing now, we’re more interested in building a wardrobe than a quick purchase that you’ll wear a handful of times” she says, “I think it's an amazing way to purchase, you buy something that you can wear for years and style it for different seasons. It’s something people used to do a lot more, and it’s something we really make sure of, that the collections will work with the our past lines”.
To enable this cross reference, under Simone Rocha’s atelier in London is a large archive of everything she’d made over the last decade. “We often reference it” she says, “it feels like one big tapestry actually. It’s something that we’re definitely aware of and referencing it is something we like to pioneer”.
When Rocha started out, there weren't that many designers who were making the ultra feminine silhouettes she’s famous for. Now of course, there are quite a lot of identikits, with Simone Rocha one of many luxury brands who have been copied by fast fashion companies. “Of course, it can be difficult when you know so much of your heart and soul has gone into a piece. But it’s not only that, so much craft and so much handwork goes into just one item, and then it's diluted. It's really disheartening. But it honestly makes you want to do better collections”. For Rocha, there’s no question she’ll continue in this pursuit. “The extremes of femininity will always fascinate me” she says, “it’s a life’s journey”.
Girls Girls Girls runs from 2 April to 29 October at Lismore Castle Arts.
