On a 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 British haute couture
The inspiration was the modernist architecture and designs of Le Corbusier, and the result was a remarkable Roksanda collection received with intense applause on Saturday morning in London.
Presented inside the upper floor of the Tate Modern, beneath the museum's central dome, this was a brilliant fashion statement, ignited by a visit to that famous temple of modernism, Villa E-1027 at Cap Martin, east of Monaco. A villa designed by Eileen Gray, but later reinvented by Le Corbusier, who painted three large colorful murals.
And a spectacle that culminated in three outrageously dramatic dresses with technical taffeta pleats and ruffles. Suggesting the waves crashing against the rocks below the villa when Roksanda visited. Blue for the sea, yellow and red for the sunset in the Mediterranean.
Despite its small size, the villa (a joint effort by the Frenchman Le Corbusier and his former lover, the Irishman Gray, it is not even 100 square meters) has a lasting influence. Both for its rigorous simplicity and sense of proportion and for the abstract cubist murals that the French architect painted, much to the dismay, on the walls of the Irish house.
Designs that, despite the artistic dispute, gave rise to a series of graphic bravura custom-produced by Italian factories in Como for Roksanda.
“It is a modest-sized villa, but it is a work of art, an extraordinary refuge for artists and a place away from society with itself,” Roksanda reflects backstage.
It also inspired modular styles in architectural jackets (with slits cut almost to the back of the mesh) or blazers that can be turned into dresses.
Versatile styles seen in tapestry dresses, which were examples of extreme experimentation: multiple threads and contrasting layers and hanging threads.
Le Corbusier called the modest cabin his castle. And while in the region, Roksanda also visited Eileen Gray's other nearby home, Tempe à Pailla, noting: “I was totally blown away.”
“I wanted to show our respect for who we are. Our beginnings in modernism, stripping everything and bringing my elements: studying art and architecture and loving interiors,” explained the designer.
Its soundtrack was mixed with speeches by Dame Judi Dench and was not completed until 3am. Something rushed, unlike this collection that seemed magnificently thought out and controlled.
Aaron Esh: A star is being born
It felt like a moment of star birth for Aaron Esch, a 2023 LVMH Prize finalist who presented a remarkably balanced and forceful collection to just 70 insiders at the Sarabande Foundation in east London on Sunday night.
Like Handel's musical dance, this collection had drama, intensity, and a sense of ideal composition; Esch's fifth since he graduated from Central St Martin's.
The keys to Aaron's designs are his ability to combine stunning couture techniques with a sense of urban elegance.
Opening with fashion-forward icon model Kiki Willems in a perfectly draped bias-cut chiffon cocktail, complete with dangling chiffon ropes. And continuing with fitted cocoon coats with high collars; 12-button micro blazers and slightly twisted pencil pants for both boys and girls in this co-ed show.
Above all, the clever and unexpected sleight of hand of tailoring made this a special moment: short youth jackets with cape-style cuts; cool mini tuxedos for girls with buttons finished at the hems and worn with hoodies; putty gray mesh jackets with platelets and a wonderful 16-button power trench with a stand collar that was the picture of perfection.
All of this carried by a cast that clung to their clothes, as if protecting them from the freezing weather. Esch called his palette of anthracite, battleship gray and weathered 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 free of a sense of false modesty.
“She's the kind of girl who wakes up hungover on Sunday morning and puts on a hoodie. And the night before she walked for Chanel,” she 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 final show on Saturday night.
A return to London also after his triumphant show for Jean-Paul Gaultier haute couture in Paris in January: the perfect encounter between Celtic mystery and French fashion.
Rocha presented this new collection as the final stage of a triptych, the first stage being her 'Dress Rehearsal' show six months ago, and the second being her stay in Paris.
Its best elements were wistful references to Queen Victoria's widowhood, which, given Simone's former love of crinkled black crepe, seemed like a close neighbor in terms of style. Not in attitude, though, from the tiny crepe jackets adorned with crystal bras that looked like menacing traps, to the blazer-style minidresses that sprang meters of sheer tulle, sewn with silver embellishments. And the big midnight blue technical taffeta capes and coats with giant bows and gathered shoulders.
A collection that suggested the imprisonment that came with 19th-century English widowhood: multiple looks were topped with layers of sheer chiffon with no obvious hand openings.
In total, a poetic collection, but one that seemed a step back, after the French haute couture dream Simone triumphed in Paris.
Johanna Parv: active sports couture
One of London's most exciting new talents is Estonian Johanna Parv, who presented her second collection at Fashion East on Friday night.
In an era where women are spending more and more time on yoga, pilates, gym, core fusion exercise regimens and cycling for work and play, Johanna Parv is the most exciting talent addressing their needs, getting to and from destinations sports.
Johanna produces a 24-hour wardrobe, created with lightweight, technical fabrics and packed with functional details. Although the key to Parv is that she cuts with the precision of a neurosurgeon: low-cut skirts with cuts in the front; fitted shirt jackets with flared sleeves and open shoulders; Micro-Nehru jackets and semi-transparent fluid cocktails and columns in a technical fabric that looked like liquid metal.
All crafted in a dark, practical palette of tobacco, black, ecru and clay, with nary a print in sight. And perfectly complemented by shoulder bags, military-style backpacks and insulated fanny packs, designed according to Parv “to keep your butt warm.”
Sinead Gorey: WAG and after-hours
London can always be trusted to come up with plenty of after-hours clubwear. And right now, few are better at that craft than Sinead Gorey, whose name is pronounced “Shin Aid.”
Of Irish descent, but born in East London, Gorey loves a game of tartan, showing off psychedelic tartan corsets and bustiers and bright daytime plaid miniskirts gathered to the thigh.
Gorey staged his show inside Heaven, a legendary gay nightclub located in a basement vault on Embankment on the Thames. Better to welcome your argyle tights, your argyle print leggings, and your pop art print micro cocktails. The more anguished and torn, the better.
Fueled by MGMT's dance rock classic 'Kids', the cast stomped and danced around the club, capturing the pure excitement that Londoners have because they live in this city.
Holzweiler: sculpting the globe
Holzweiler is a Scandinavian fashion brand that is building a significant community in the UK fashion ecosystem. Her last show was a packed house inside the Tate Modern, and her latest collection got a huge round of applause at the end when her trio of designers took their bow.
Based in Oslo, but very open to current trends, most with down jackets and remarkably sculptural accessories. What started and ended this show. Starting with the first of several inverted down jackets and ending with the largest down coat in fashion history, worn by a blonde, icy-eyed Viking model.
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