Martine Rose is a London designer. Her’s is a London story. Her shows have dragged us willingly all over the city, from climbing walls to children’s schools, north London cul-de-sacs to defunct gay saunas, City skyscrapers to Latin American markets. The latter show in particular, staged in 2017, presaged much of Martine Rose’s story. Yes, she creates incredible and inventive fashion, but her work is also rooted in community, real people, and the natural and wonderful mix you might encounter on a night out. The venue in Florence was a market, too. The vibe translated effortlessly and easily, with this medieval foyer and its imposing stone columns reimagined as a shag pile-carpeted and mirror-clad discotheque.
“I’m so proud of the cast,” Martine said after the show, surrounded by ancient suits of armour, huge flags and Renaissance paintings. “We found so many of them in cafes and restaurants and streets around here.” But she also brought them in from London too, with the aim to create a collaboration between the two cities. That idea of crossover between the two cities extended through the collection, in the music and clothes, too. “I wanted it to feel like a real blend.” With Italo classic “Stop Bajon” by Tullio De Piscopo blaring out over the speakers, the models came in what felt like a selection of Martine’s greatest hits, a reminder of her unique, playful, approach to fashion.
“Some cheekiness, a bit of sex, a bit of fun,” she said of the bumster jeans that were one highlight. But fun might be a good description of the wider collection too, which took recognisable garments and twisted or exaggerated them just enough to fit into Martine’s universe. “I always like things that feel familiar but slightly off,” she said. “I was looking at doll’s clothing, and how things never quite fit.” And this influenced a series of looks with shrugged necklines. There was a touch of tailoring, rendered fabulously sleazy; tracksuits came with wild west fringing, seen alongside boiled and shrunken knits; an updated version of last season’s Nike collab Shox — here in electric blue — appeared, and there was a debut of a new UGG collaboration, a platform silhouette in green. These pieces embodied Martine’s unparalleled ability to make tough clothes with a sense of humour and curiosity; to take something you already know very well and show it to you in a totally new light.
She’d started working on the collection before she was invited to Pitti — and, as such, she didn’t alter it for Florence — but quite naturally some of that came through “subconsciously” in the final output. “I like layering references, taking things that aren’t obviously beautiful and transforming them,” she said, and it would’ve been very easy to lean more into the Pitti thing, this centre of the menswear universe, but this was really about Martine and her world — a world that’s always very fantastically a little off, in the fringes and outskirts. It’s much cooler there than in the centre.
Credits
Images courtesy of Spotlight