Pop stars dream of breaking the US, fashion designers want to prove themselves in Paris.
Simone Rocha, the Irish fashion designer who has been a darling of London fashion week since her first show at the Tate Modern in 2010, did just that when she became the sixth designer invited by the haute couture legend Jean Paul Gaultier to make a guest appearance on his Paris catwalk.
“It went beyond what I expected,” Gaultier said backstage after Rocha’s show. “She is very clever. It was so intelligent, as well as being so beautiful.”
Gaultier retired in 2020 but has retained his coveted spot during the haute couture fashion shows, using it to offer other designers the opportunity to interpret his legacy with the expertise of his studio. He has self-deprecatingly described the project as “a bit pretentious”, though it has inspired previous guest designers including Olivier Rousteing, Julien Dossena and Chitose Abe.
Rocha, who is of Chinese heritage, specialises in a twisted girlishness that puts bows and ribbons on to dresses that are often oversized, deconstructed or both. (Imagine if Snow White had run away and joined the Pogues, and you get the idea.) Gaultier is the beloved Gallic showman who put Breton stripes on the runway, Madonna in a conical pink satin bra, and was dressing men in skirts as far back as 1985.
In the grand double-height central hall of Gaultier’s Paris headquarters, with Kylie Jenner and Baz Luhrmann in the front row, these two aesthetics came together in provocation, sex, humour and surrealism. The legendary conical bra was brought back to life as two thorns, sculpted from silk, jutting sharply from the feminine curves of a dress as though from a rose bush.
At least half of the 35 looks in the show featured corsets, some buckled with bondage harnesses, others embroidered with daisies. But the corsets were as often left undone as winched tight, and they trailed their ribbons like undone shoelaces. There was a rich seam of subversion in the details: earrings were made from the porcelain casts of suspender-belt stays, or from human hair knotted into chignons.
Rocha said backstage after the show that she found common ground with Gaultier in “a love of the breast and the hip and the female form”, adding that the project “felt like we were having a really natural conversation”.
Rocha’s heritage was vividly conjured in Paris in a strapless gown patchworked from pieces of vintage Irish crochet, metallicised with silver. Meanwhile, Gaultier’s signature Breton top took on Rocha’s characteristic balletic vibe, as a sheer mesh T-shirt horizontally striped with narrow navy silk ribbons tied into loose bows. A sailor’s cap in rose pink duchess satin sported ballet-shoe pink ribbon fastenings. Tulle petticoats – one under a crisp white shirtdress, others prettily weighted with a grass skirt of crystals – scored another appearance for this week’s standout new look, the tutu skirt, a trend for which Rocha was an early champion.
By tradition, every haute couture show ends with a bridal gown. This one was in classic lace – but with the edges left raw, so that the hem was a blur of untethered wisps of fabric. Rock’n’roll stuff in the rule-bound world of haute couture.
Rocha, who will show her own-name collection in London next month, said after the show that the opportunity “felt like a gift” and had made her more ambitious for her future.
