There’s a weird sexiness to the characters Martine Rose envisions. Often donning ratty wigs, sometimes even ghoulish facial prosthetics, it’s as if the designer is daring you to not find them hot. Yet, as they charge awkwardly down the catwalk, their clothes suctioned close to the body or given the XXL treatment, you can’t help but be intrigued by their eccentricities.
It’s because Rose is anthropological her approach, studying fleeting moments of immense style found on the streets, on buses, in every day occurrences. People who make you stop to look twice. The lookbook for her AW26 collection sees her muses preening in a household mirror. Their heads come wrapped in cling film, as if they are in the middle of getting their hair dyed in their kitchen and have nipped upstairs to put their outfit together for a night on the town, all while their colour sets in. The clothes in question were a clever mash-up of Martine signatures, signposts of the designer’s previous collections that collided to great effect.
Instead of a defined theme, Rose said she was led by “her own creative instinct” this time around, a celebration of the “pure creation” that unfolds she gets together with her team, who egg each-other on to really crank things up a notch. Here, loafers are elongated to winklepicker lengths and jeans are surgically slashed open to reveal slithers of fuzzy animal print, paired with bulky jackets with their own furry shoulders and arms. Weirdly, the flamboyance of Henry VIII was a starting point for the wide shoulders, which also translated into T-shirts that migrated into the arms of a MA-1 bomber.
Throughout, contrasting ideas were collaged and zapped with youthful energy. Like workwear that came with corsetry boning, or dress shirts that were ripped of their torsos and welded with lacy camisoles. On paper these combinations sound bonkers, and they are! But they look totally brilliant. That’s the magic of Martine for you.
Photography courtesy of Martine Rose.
