Turning Up the Volume On the Prim and Provocative
Review of Simone Rocha Spring 2026 Fashion Show
By Angela Baidoo
THE COLLECTION
THE VIBE
Protecting the Prim, Floral Gestures, Exaggerated Provocation
In a turn of unexpected events, a number of London designers have taken to referencing the idealism of the heyday of the housewife. From last night’s Richard Quinn collection that would not have been out of place in a salon-setting during the period when the fashion show was a closed-door affair to Emilia Wickstead’s very British riff on Robert Mapplethorpes ‘radical sensuality’ but seen through the designers lens.
Subverting the idealism of the 1950s which revered the housewife, the prom queen, and the pin up as symbols of feminine perfectionism, and which so much of today’s conservative rhetoric speaks of returning too, you had to give it to Simone Rocha for turning those ideals inside out as only a Brit can. Prim and proper (the opera coat, bustles, full hooped skirts, hourglass dresses and pretty knits) got a gutsy makeover, removing the veneer we associate with the 1950s woman. Todays notes also referenced photographer Justine Kurlands ‘Girl Pictures’ book depicting rebellious teens running wild in an equally untamed American wilderness/woodland, and it was not too far a stretch to imagine how the designer had those girls who were Kurlands subjects as muses for spring 2026.
Though not an official celebration, Rocha can count 2025 as her 15th year anniversary so there was a natural desire to look back at some of her most familiar design tropes – floral embroidered tulle (fall 2018) or florals ‘suspended’ in glossy PVC or sheers (spring 2014), pearls and plush comfort objects (pillows, gargoyles) and the full skirt. Here, overcoats in wipe-clean PVC protected the delicately quilted pink coats worn underneath. Panniers and bustles continue the exaggeration of the female form, rounding hips to epic proportions and returning to the opening look of her guest turn with Jean Paul Gaultier for spring 2024 couture. All giving weight to the fact that her visual language and way of talking to women has lost none of its appeal in over a decade.
As a female designer who has helmed her brand – extremely successfully – for 15 years it begs the question as to why she wasn’t tapped to fill one of the numerous creative director chairs left vacant over the last two years, could this possibly be the ‘bittersweet to which she referred in her show notes. Yet this oversight, or short-sightedness, has not hindered her from rising to become one of the industry’s most influential female creatives working today.
THE DIRECTION
THE WRAP UP
Ending todays show with a finale soundtracked by the perennial song ‘Que Sera Sera’, there was a pragmatic yet no less comforting acceptance of a future which may be spiralling out of our control, and if we wield no influence over whatever is destined to happen then whether we are damned if we do or damned if we don’t, let’s take Rochas guidance and look damn good doing it. Whatever that ‘it’ may be.
