London Fashion Week: John Rocha

JOHN Rocha’s collection sees the designer at his best, showing off a “nineties insouciance and a noughties polish”

Young designer Simone Rocha sat front row at her father John Rocha’s show. She had presented her own collection just three hours earlier but had come, like the rest of the audience, to pay her respects to a London Fashion Week veteran. Rocha senior’s collection was, as ever, an homage to noir. Inspired by the abstract canvases of artist Sean Scully, it featured oblong blocks of black texture, rather than colour, executed to subtle effect. Grungy, floor-sweeping dresses were peppered with panels of silk georgette, velvet, lace and devore, all in the designer’s signature hue. Models carried fuzzy black basketballs by way of handbags, their hair artfully dishevelled, kitten-heeled patent galoshes on their feet. Black gave way to colour on occasion, in green satin panelling on rib cages or, in one instance, in a brilliant gold confection of a voluminous taffeta jacket. Subtler pieces featured abstract 3D blooms crawling up torsos while simple black belted wool coats punctuated the collection. With both a nineties insouciance and a noughties polish, this was Rocha at his best. If Kurt Cobain and Marilyn Manson shared the same taste in girlfriends, this is probably how she would dress; black on black, lashings of velvet and lace and knowing, couture-esque detailing. Hearty applause greeted the designer as he took his bow, with his daughter and protege clapping the loudest, naturally.