Solitary poseurs posturing in front of their own reflections: it’s the simplest of set-ups, yet here, in the inimitably suggestive Martine Rose manner it thrums with a cocky sexuality. This lookbook affair also arrived coupled with one of the all-time best collection tag-lines: “Working into archetypes and wardrobe pieces in a silly way and a serious way.”
Rose can make us laugh out loud and boggle at her fearlessly specific fearlessness at the same time. Thus we learn that her poseur inspirations—largely the ones with shoulders bristling with fake fur shoulders—ran from Hans Holbein’s portraits of the Tudor court to the show-off garb of the boxing ring. There was boned corsetry, too, but used as definition in atypical places. It fanned outward as a basque embedded in the top section of a pair of woman’s man-tailored trousers. Less visibly, it was in there sculpting the mid-section of a man’s blazer to perfection.
The puffed-out, big-sleeved silhouettes might have started out as studies on Renaissance doublets, but by the time they were finished at Rose HQ, they transmitted into the sleeves of sports jackets or MA-1s. The glamor and the swagger were amplified by the tightness of leather pants and the elongation of the toe of shoes.
It was also a show of her ownership of brand signifiers: the fetish-y metal hardware linking the belts together, the shirts implanted with camisole tops, the slivers of animal print inset into denim, and all of those outsize utility, ski and workwear jackets. All these originated in Martine Rose’s body of work many moons ago. That’s the ‘serious’ side of her contribution to fashion. Good to see her reminding us of that.
