“It’s been an experience this last year,” Simone says succinctly before breaking out in a laugh backstage. It’s true, in twelve transformative months, the young designer has grown her business exponentially, moved house, opened her first store, and had a baby. For most of us, such an experience would leave us emotionally and physically exhausted but not Rocha. These life changing moments have not only re-energized her, they’ve inspired her. In one of her most personal collections to date, fall/winter 16 muses motherhood.
“As I took a little time off for the baby, it gave me time to think and offered a new perspective,” she explains. Lying on her hospital bed, Simone was inspired by everything from matron uniforms to surgical gloves, oversize smocks and dressing gowns. Placing a dreamy lens over her reality and dark fantasy — there’s is always something sinister alongside the sweetness, Simone softly shared the latest chapter to her captivating story. “It was all about this idea of swaddling and mothering,” she explains. Whilst initial looks were nude and exposed, craft embellishment, fabric, and silhouette play saw Simone nurture a collection full of life and personality. “It was about building and growing, everything got so big.” Life laid bare.
“After the break, I felt like I had a lot more to say and do when I returned to the studio,” she adds (only Simone could refer to pregnancy as a break). “I was particularly keen to develop the silhouettes. I wanted to push things on and was far more aware of the fine details of everything,” she explains. After her “break,” there’s no stopping Simone now. In the meantime, lose yourself in Simone’s meditation on maternity and poem to parenting:
“Baptism, birth, rebirth, Victorian dress, mess.
Unravelling, reweaving, restrain, restricting, strict.
Falling apart at the seams.
Tailored tulle, tinsel tweed, female form, adorn, adorned.
Adorned with embellished breast, I need rest.
Swaddled, wrapping, enveloping, smothering, mothering.”
Credits
Photography Jason Lloyd-Evans