Halfway through a fashion week where some VERY tone deaf designers have stood out with their off kilter messaging, Roland Mouret gave us a collection in tune with what is going on in the real world.
Modest silhouettes, gender fluid dressing, a body-positive message, diverse catwalk casting – and clothes that were totally beautiful. Mouret’s collection was beyond refreshing. And as the frow guests (including Charli Howard, Daisy Lowe and Josephine de la Baume) sat in a sun-speckled courtyard behind the Royal Academy, I couldn’t help but wonder, why did it seem such a rare event to see clothes that were easy to wear on any body, yet were still chic and aspirationally cool?
During a period in which the fashion industry supposedly wakes up to woke, it’s been glaringly obvious that there is still a lot of work to be done on inclusivity. Fashion is a wildly warm place with every self proclaimed art school freak welcome to find their tribe in the capital’s melting pot – as long as they have the finances, of course, to support a lifestyle in London… but that’s a whole other article… However swathes of the industry are still a colourblind and size-ist space. Making catwalk shows relevant to the wider world outside the narrow fashion circus is a slow process, it seems, although not at Roland Mouret.
The models included women of colour with cornrows and nose rings, people of indiscernible gender followed by gloriously feminine butts and boobs and a few hot men sprinkled throughout, hailing the return of Mouret’s menswear line – but the mix never felt token-istic. Mouret’s own art dealer and Sabrina Elba, a longterm pal, were in the model line up. It felt authentic because it was.
Other shows have still had runways stalked by super young and super skinny girls and that’s cool – everybody’s body is different and we are down with that – but when every model fits the traditional 6ft, white, visible hip bones stereotype what does that say about a designers opinions of who they is going to dress.
The clothes that Mouret is going to dress his clients in were dreamy. Mermaid green sequin dresses shimmered next to billowing navy and orange silk; soft stone, cream and taupe relaxed tailoring blended with flashes of pale sage and coral. Eveningwear looked effortless worn with flat sandals while silhouettes were slouchy and mostly modest (some models wore headscarves) although an occasional bare shoulder or split kaftan collar felt natural and far from forcedly sexy. It helps that Mouret has always celebrated women’s curves – the wildly popular Galaxy dress was a red carpet killer in the early Noughties – so he has an inbuilt radar for designing what women want. And even as a white, Cis woman – with all the privileges that bestows – I want to see people of every colour and body shape on the catwalk.
In a season where shows have been subject to protests from Extinction Rebellion activists, it shows that fashion still needs a reality check but Roland Mouret is as real as they come.
