In a mega busy weekend, FashionNetwork.com caught up with a dozen collections. Here are six that really stood out: Roksanda, Aaron Esh, Simone Rocha, Johanna Parv, Sinead Gorey and Holzweiler.
Roksanda: From Le Corbusier to UK couture
The inspiration was the modernist architecture and designs of Le Corbusier, and the result was a remarkable collection by Roksanda greeted with intense applause Saturday morning in London.
Presented inside the upper floor of Tate Modern, under the museum’s central dome, this was a brilliant fashion statement, ignited by a visit to that famed temple of modernism, Villa E-1027 at Cap Martin, east of Monaco. A villa designed by Eileen Gray, but then reimagined by Le Corbusier, who painted three large colorful murals.
And a show climaxing with three outrageously dramatic gowns in unfolding furls and ruffles of technical taffeta. Suggesting the waves crashing on the rocks below the villa when Roksanda visited. The blue for the sea, the yellow and red for sunset on the Mediterranean.
Despite its small size, the villa – a joint effort by France’s Le Corbusier and his former lover, Irish-born Gray, is not even 100-square-meters large – has an enduring influence. Both for its rigorous simplicity and sense of proportions and for the abstract cubist murals which the French architect painted to the great dismay on the Irishwoman’s walls.
Designs that despite the artistic dispute led to a series of bravura graphic prints custom-produced by Italian mills in Como for Roksanda.
“It’s a modest villa in size, but it’s a work of art, a remarkable shelter for artists, and an away from society with yourself,” mused Roksanda in the backstage.
Also it inspired modular styling in architectural jackets – with vents cut up almost to the back of the net – or blazers that can become dresses.
Versatile styles seen in tapestry dresses, which were examples of extreme experimentation – multiple contrasting yarns and layers and hanging threads.
Le Corbusier called the modest cabin, his chateau. And while in the region, Roksanda also checked out Eileen Gray’s other house nearby, Tempe à Pailla, and stressed, “I was totally blown away.”
“I wanted to show our respect of who we are. Our beginnings in modernism, stripping everything down and bringing my elements – studying art and architecture and loving interiors,” explained the designer.
Her soundtrack mixed in speeches from Dame Judi Dench and was only completed at 3 a.m. in the morning. Something of a rush, unlike this collection which felt rather magnificently thought out and in control.
Aaron Esh: A star is being born
It felt like a star-is-born moment at Aaron Esch, a LVMH Prize 2023 finalist who staged a remarkably poised and punchy collection before just 70 insiders in Sarabande Foundation in East London on Sunday night.
Like Handel’s musical dance, there was drama, intensity and a sense of ideal composition about this collection; Esch’s fifth since he graduated from Central St Martin’s.
The keys to Aaron’s designs are his ability to ally impressive couture techniques with a sense of street chic.
Opening with edgy icon model Kiki Willems in a perfectly draped bias-cut gossamer cocktail, completed with dangling chiffon ropes. And continuing with high collar slimline cocoon coats; micro 12-button blazers and slightly twisted pencil pants – for both guys and gals in this co-ed show.
Above all, the artful and unexpected tailoring sleights of hand made this a special moment: cropped boyish jackets cut cape style; cool mini tuxedos for gals with buttons finished at the hems, and worn with hoodies; putty gray mesh jackets with plaquettes and a stupendous 16-button power trench with funnel neck that was the picture of perfection.
All worn by a cast that gripped their clothes, as if protecting themselves from icy weather. Esch called his palette of anthracite, battleship gray and worn red, “the London skyline.” Tough chic with credibility.
“You have to have an incredibly high bar to be an Aaron Esch girl,” added the designer, whose conversation was unblemished by a sense of false modesty.
“She is the kind of girl who wakes up with a hangover on Sunday morning and throws on a hoodie. And the night before she walks for Chanel,” he added, with the supreme self-confidence of youth.
Simone Rocha: Victorian widowhood
Elsewhere in East London to see Simone Rocha, who returned to the medieval church of St Bartholomew the Great for her latest show on Saturday evening.
A return to London also after her triumphant show for Jean-Paul Gaultier couture in Paris in January – the perfect meeting of Celtic mystery with French mode.
Rocha presented this new collection as the final stage of a triptych, with the first leg her ‘Dress Rehearsal’ show six months ago, and the second her Paris sojourn.
Its best elements were wistful references to the widowhood of Queen Victoria, which given Simone’s long-standing love of crinkly black crepe felt like a close neighbor in terms of style. Though not of attitude – from the wee crepe jackets embellished with crystals bras that looked like threatening traps, to the mini blazer dresses sprouting yards of sheer tulle, sewn with silvery baubles. And the grand midnight blue technical taffeta cloaks and coats with giant bows and puckered shoulders.
A collection that suggested the imprisonment that 19th-century English widowhood implied — multiple looks were finished with sheer chiffon cloaks with no obvious openings for the hands.
All told a poetic collection, but one that seemed like a step back, after the French couture reverie Simone pulled off in Paris.
Johanna Parv: Active sport couture
One of London’s most exciting new talents is Estonian-born Johanna Parv, who staged her second collection at Fashion East on Friday night.
In an era of where women devote ever increasing amounts of time to yoga, pilates, gym, core fusion exercise regimes and cycling to work and pleasure, Johanna Parv is the most interesting talent addressing their needs – going and coming from sporting destinations.
Johanna produces a 24-hour wardrobe, created in techy lightweight fabrics and brim full of functional detailing. Though the key to Parv is that she cuts with the precision of a brain surgeon: low-slung skirts slashed up the front; snug shirt jackets with fluted sleeves and slashed out shoulders; micro-Nehru jackets and fluid semi-sheer cocktails and columns in a technical fabric that looked like liquid metal.
All made in a dark and practical palette of tobacco, black, ecru and mud, with not a print in sight. And perfectly accessorized with shoulder pouches, military style backpacks and insulated fanny packs – designed according to Parv “to keep the bum warm.”
Sinead Gorey: WAGs and after-hours
One can always rely on London to dream up a lot of after-hours clubbing clothes. And right now, few are better at that métier than Sinead Gorey – whose first name is pronounced ‘Shin Aid’.
Of Irish origin, but East London-born, Gorey sure loves a tartan romp, showing psychedelic tartan corsets and bustiers, and day glo plaid mini skirts ruched way up the thigh.
Gorey staged her show inside Heaven, a legendary gay after-hours club housed in a basement vault space at the Embankment on the Thames. The better to welcome her argyle body stockings, lozenge prints leggings and mashed up pop art print micro cocktails. The more distressed and ripped up the better.
Driven on by dance rock classic ‘Kids’ by MGMT, the cast stomped and jived around the club, capturing the sheer enthusiasm Londoners have because they live in this city.
Holzweiler: Sculpting the puffer
Holzweiler is a happening Scandi brand that is building a major community in the UK fashion ecosystem. Its latest show was packed out inside Tate Modern, and its latest collection earned a huge roar of applause at the finale when its design trio took their bow.
Based in Oslo, but very much with their eyes open to the current trends, most with notably sculptural down jackets and accessories. Which kicked off and climaxed this show. Beginning with the first of several upside-down puffers and ending with the biggest down coat in fashion history – worn by a suitably icy-eyed blond Viking model.
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