“Usually, it’s ‘go, go, go, show!’ and then it’s over,” says Simone Rocha over Zoom, five days before her spring/summer 2021 collection reveal. “We’d [normally] be showing in Lancaster House, a church or Alexandra Palace… Now we’re presenting in a space that is the polar opposite, a place that is stark in its beauty.”
Rocha is calmly emerging into the crazed world of late 2020 with beautiful clothes to show— definitely in real life—and also with a soon-to-be-released film she’s made with her cinematographer partner Eoin McLaughlin [and James Coyle as the director]. So here she is, in the Hauser & Wirth gallery on London’s Savile Row, with an installation that reflects everything she’s been through as a designer, a mother and an independent businessperson over the past six months. “I have a few models in the space and people coming in for appointments. It feels a little like you’re going to the supermarket,” she laughs. “People can come in and do a little loop. I wanted to highlight the pace we need to be able to appreciate things.”
Anyone who’s ever followed Rocha knows that she’s been one for placing her shows in historic settings—the more opulent, the better—but the upheaval of the pandemic has made her hyper-aware of considering how she places her work in today’s lived history. “What we do is a trade and it has a practicality to it, but there is so much emotion that goes into the clothes. There are always so many stories to tell, and what’s happening now is part of that story. So, I’ve approached it a little bit like a new leaf.”
Her response is a channelling of delight and resilience; a combination of generous volumes and tender embroidery, extravagant brocade and pearl beading—all offset by the toile-like purity of a cream canvas. “I wanted [the clothes] to represent the escapism we’re all craving and feeling, but I also wanted them to give the body a sense of security.”
Despite the sudden horror of the pandemic, and the worry about the impact on her team and her three stores, the one thing Rocha says didn’t change is the way she tapped into her unconscious to begin her collection. “There is so much that’s out of our control, but what I have under my jurisdiction is that I’m independent, and that gave me the freedom to decide creatively how we can do what we do in a new way. I have my family, but my team is also my family, and my responsibility is also to them. In the beginning, [the situation] was just so shocking. But actually, quite quickly, I found it was also an opportunity to re-look at everything, to think about how I wanted to do it and what’s important to me.”
So, at the top of a page in her notebook titled Spring/Summer 2021, she began writing:
“Sobering and exploding,
Pragmatic and foreboding.
Personal, provocative, suggestive intimacy, excavating […]
Hand-embroidered castles from a faraway place […]
Breasts, chests, creature comforts […]
Looking for comfort and security in the extreme.”
“Everything is sobering now, but I think creativity should be exploding,” she says. “Clothes are made from cloth. They come to life on a body, but what are the thoughts in the head of that body? I’ve never been a big sketcher. Writing things down is how I process all my thoughts and ideas. I get so many, and so much horrendous insomnia around this time of the year, I just write everything down or else I forget it. Even if it isn’t spelled right or doesn’t make sense, or the punctuation is wrong, I always start with all these lyrics alongside the clothes.”
Making the collection—with its castle embroideries and scalloped broderie anglaise cottons—was a tender, collaborative effort in the darkest hours. “Myself and the team were doing the embroideries at home by hand. People were working on machines from their homes, and it really highlighted how personal and important everyone’s work is. So I wanted to put those things into the collection.”
“I will admit, of course, it was incredibly challenging having the studio closed, my stores in London, New York and Hong Kong closed. My daughter came out of school, and I was in the middle of my autumn/winter production. I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t all roses! But at the same time, it’s been incredibly interesting and eye-opening. In one way, I feel like it was the pause that everyone needed to understand why we do what we do: why is it important, what do I want my clothes to say, what are my values?”
What has really buoyed Rocha’s spirits is seeing the way women have started returning to her stores now they have begun to reopen. “We’ve had an incredible response, which we were thrilled about,” she says. “Hong Kong has started to open up again, so we are trading well in the far east. In New York, our store is open on a more restricted time scale and different rotation of team, but we are back open.”
She smiles. “What’s been amazing and humbling is seeing friends, clients and customers coming in and saying it is the first store they’ve visited since lockdown. It has really shown how important the community is around us. That’s been amazing. To see how people still want to be part of it. For me, it’s always been people’s feelings about my clothes that’s important.”
