It Brit Designer Simone Rocha Debuts Clique-Inspired Denim

Photo: Benjamin McMahon

This article appears in the November 2014 issue of ELLE magazine.
Denim isn't the first thing that comes to mind at the mention of Irish designer Simone Rocha—she of the Perspex platforms and faux-prim fluorescent guipure frocks spotted on fashion darlings Alexa Chung and Chloë Grace Moretz. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find a pair of trousers in her namesake collection—all the more reason why her latest collaboration, with denim label J Brand (available in mid-November at Dover Street Market), will thrill her ardent fans.
The 28-year-old Rocha, who founded her line in 2011, was first approached by the L.A.-based denim maker earlier this year, shortly after the highly praised presentation of her pearl-studded, Elizabethan-inspired fall collection. Given that J Brand has collaborated with critics' favorites in the past—Proenza Schouler, Hussein Chalayan, Christopher Kane—you could say Rocha is following in fairly big footsteps. But J Brand is lucky to have the young talent onboard given all the industry whispers regarding LVMH's intentions for her label. Rocha admits switching gears was a new challenge. "I'd never worked with denim before. It was a bit tricky, but interesting to see how it could be manipulated," she says. And these are no basic five-pocket numbers. "I really wanted to introduce volume into the skirts, dresses, and jackets. I felt that was the best new way of working with the existing silhouettes," she explains. The result: The designer has melded her feminine aesthetic and voluminous shapes with that most proletarian of textiles, producing full, ruffle-trimmed skirts and dresses that can be easily worn over the line's (also frilled) cropped skinnies.
Rocha envisioned the collection as a sort of urban uniform, but one that doesn't feel at all restrictive. "I really wanted the collection to seem youthful and fun," she says. "I was thinking of girls in uniforms in a gang and how everyone is part of that uniform but in their own way. I saw these girls outside my studio in East London mucking about, so the colors came from nature. I was attracted to how each style in a different color felt like a different personality."
In addition to the aforementioned eye-popping lace, the bold use of color—butter-yellow python or bubble-gum-pink neoprene, for example—is one of Rocha's hallmark. So while the J Brand collection will introduce a new customer to her designs, existing fans will likely be pleased to pair the off-duty styles (prices range from $250 for jeans to $590 for a dress) with their fresh-from-the-runway pieces. And just who is that customer? Rocha describes her as "a bit of a free spirit, cool and real," not unlike the teenage Rocha, who "used to just hang out down by the canal" in her favorite jean skort. With her newfound affinity for denim, will Rocha be unearthing that vintage skort anytime soon? "I think I'll stick to my new collection," she says with a laugh.