For designers tasked with revitalizing a heritage fashion house, designing a collection inspired by a bestselling perfume is something of a rite of passage
“I really wanted something joyful, fun and quite poetic. I wanted the Rochas woman this season to be happy,” the designer said.
For the first time since taking over as artistic director of Rochas last year, Charles de Vilmorin took a closer look at the house’s formidable fragrance footprint, basing his resort collection on a colorful vintage ad for Eau de Rochas.
The signatures he’s established, in the short time since he founded his brand during the coronavirus pandemic, were still present. But there was a new lightness to his loopy, handdrawn motifs, rendered in an aquatic palette of blue, coral and green, and his puffy-sleeved blouses and jackets in weightless fabrics.
The collection’s main motif, evoking the reflection of light on water, was inspired by a costume that Pablo Picasso designed for the Ballets Russes in 1917. It was rendered in opulent fil coupé brocade on a striking blue coat and matching thigh boots, and used as a print on a flowing trouser suit paired with mirror ball platform boots.
Meanwhile, de Vilmorin’s colorful renderings of underwater life were overlaid on marbled blue taffeta for a babydoll dress, while rainbow stripes undulated on a sheer pleated skirt.