Simone Rocha Fall 2015 RTW
**Simone Rocha’**s fast-growing brand of girly dressing has a darkly subversively personal streak. Her psychic backdrop as a child brought up in Ireland in an arts-aware family meant that she was taken to exhibitions from the time she was a toddler. One of them was a show by Louise Bourgeois, whose autobiographically allusive body of work—sometimes involving soft sculptures and tapestry—depicted her struggles to communicate female sexuality. Well, perhaps it s not necessary to know that Rocha s fall collection contains references to Bourgeois. In her show notes, she specified Mammelles, Bourgeois s 1991 sculpture of breasts. Mammaries are indeed hinted at all along in Rocha s use of sheer, pale-flesh-colored materials and, if you pay close attention, in the motif woven into some of the surface patterns. Even the padded, petal-like, 3-D shapes that opened and closed the show turned out to be collaged allusions to breasts. But otherwise, the collection was as prettily quirky as ever: wearable and practical to a fault.
Rocha s identification with Bourgeois, who was the daughter of tapestry makers, manifests in textiles. The oversize chenille brocades in the collection—see the capes with frills—were sourced at an ancient manufacturer in Lyons. The chintzy roses and red-and-white checks in the show had the same kind of "heritage" craftiness about them, but without seeming literally historicist. Rocha s signature simple dresses and ruffled edges continued, interspersed with a couple of new toga-like shapes, and two charming short dresses with dippy, flouncy, asymetrical hemlines. There aren t many designers who can hold prettiness, subversion, darkness, and fun within the same collection—particularly not someone as young as Rocha. Another job well done.
