London-based menswear designer Martine Rose is on her own trip. That s what makes her work such a pleasure—the sense that she s telling a story no one else knows. This season, she delved into her own teenage memories of raving, with a lot of help from the Wild Life Archive, a collection of youth culture errata compiled by Rose s friend Steve Terry. Using Terry s old rave fliers as a jumping-off point, Rose conjured the "low" glamour of the original scene—the shiny shirts, the crusty furs, the baggy pants and anoraks—and exaggerated the look as a means of elevating it. The big faux fur—shaved with a beard trimmer, with embedded fliers—has been a surprise hit, according to Rose. But that makes sense, actually. Even Rose s most fanciful pieces are grounded in a masculine reality that makes them relatable. The same is true of her more challenging silhouettes, like the extra-voluminous denim: They ll look great in editorial, but the look wouldn t strike you as absurd if you encountered it in the street. That s an impressive trick. Martine Rose has been flying under the radar for a while now; here s hoping this is the collection that gets her the buzz she deserves.
