report by linda grant
photography by catwalking.com
For young designers, mash-up is not a state of mind but the state of how you live. There’s no longer such a thing as purity of form, we live in a world where everything is available simultaneously to be mixed. It’s no longer a matter of borrowing, copying or even a homage. Everything is equal – what you made, what someone else made. The effect can sometimes be incoherence, or it can show how things that don’t obviously belong together can, in a new juxtaposition, say something original. Simone Rocha’s collection for Fashion East aims for the biggest mash-up of all, between masculinity and femininity, with mixed fabrics and surfaces, cable knit, pony skin, shearling, gingham and tulle. Severe tailoring in black wool sat above tulle shorts and panels of teddy-bear faux fur and even fur sleeves. At a couple of points she sent out dresses that looked as if they had been designed for Ms Flintstone. The shoes were Perspex-heeled brogues, both masculine and feminine at the same time, odd and interesting.
