FASHION MONTH used to be a time we eagerly featured the pieces we loved most from our favorite shows. But that tradition waned in recent years, perhaps since the start of the pandemic. However, Simone Rocha and Jean Paul Gaultier’s recent collaboration at Couture Fashion Week was a reminder of what we had been missing. The talented Irish fashion designer presented in Paris as part of Jean Paul Gaultier’s guest designer programme, marking the first time that Rocha has designed a couture collection. It was a wonderful opportunity for the fashion designer to try a new skill, as well as to add a new Parisian and haute couture sensibility to her own aesthetic. The new collection perfectly blended signature codes of both houses in an arresting array of dramatic silhouettes, ballgowns, tulle creations, and plenty of bows, frills, rhinestones, pearls and flowers merged with corsets and sailor-inspired accessories, underwear-as-outerwear, and Rocha’s fashionable take on Gaultier’s iconic cone bra. To say that it was breathtakingly inspiring would be an understatement. Rocha is the latest designer to be invited by Jean Paul Gaultier to visit the archive and dream up a hybrid couture collection that brings together both their worlds. She joins Olivier Rousteing, Haider Ackermann, Julien Dossena, Glenn Martens, and Chitose Abe who went before her.
