LONDON — British fashion designer Martine Rose is looking to challenge the notion of beauty and conventional men’s fashion with her Milan runway debut on Sunday.
For the first time, the designer picked a location for convenience over a personal link. The venue is a short walk away from Fondazione Prada, where Prada will stage its spring 2025 men’s show an hour before Rose’s 3 p.m. slot.
“Last season [in Paris] was a friend-and-family concept. This one, we wanted to be the opposite and super accessible. We wanted to invite as many people as possible from the industry. The building itself is of no particular significance at all. We have chosen venues of cultural significance or historical importance, like the one we did in Pitti — it was on a very significant market square. This time, it is more about what we would bring into the space. That’s what we wanted the focus to be,” said Rose during a preview.
Milan will be the fourth city where Rose has staged a show, after London, where she has done shows in various locations with personal links — a climbing and bouldering center for spring 2018, a residential street near Camden Market for spring 2019, a school where her daughter attended for 2020, and a North London community center for spring 2024 — as well as Florence for fall 2023 as a special guest designer for Pitti Uomo, and Paris for fall 2024.
You May Also Like
The designer compared her Milan debut to a “homecoming” moment. Since receiving investment from the fashion showroom and brand accelerator Tomorrow in 2021, half of her team is now based in Milan.
It doesn’t mean she has identified Milan as the permanent base, but she admitted that doing a show in the Italian city poses less of a logistical challenge as her showroom is there.
“I don’t think I’m settled. I try not to settle on anything and you’ll see that also with the show. As soon as I settle on anything, I’d be worried because it gets a bit boring,” said Rose. “The concept is about asking new questions and asking myself and the team and everyone that is coming to it, open-ended questions about what beauty is.”
One thing that doesn’t change is that Rose wants the spring 2025 collection to be as authentic to herself as possible.
“There’s nothing that I do that is intentionally controversial or disruptive, but if it does [become that], because of the questions that I ask or what I’m inspired by, that’s sort of a byproduct,” said Rose when asked if her presence would shock the city’s sartorial old guard. “I always felt incredibly supported and appreciated in Italy,” she added.
Rose confirmed that in addition to a more direct and critical take on conventional men’s fashion, the spring 2025 runway show will feature her second collaboration with Clarks, as well as visual representations of her ongoing partnership with Nike.
The designer was appointed as the first guest creative director of the British shoe manufacturer last year. In February, Rose took over the Selfridges Corner Shop for her debut collection with Clarks. The experiential pop-up space was transformed into a series of nostalgic bedrooms, evoking a sense of familiarity and comfort, qualities that Clarks was known for in the 1980s when it prided itself on being as cozy as a luxury mattress.
“I’ve played with what’s convention in menswear and explored what that can mean and where that can go. I’ve continued that [this season] in a more direct way. There will be whole stories that are really questioning fluidity and what men can wear. There’s lots of texture throughout the collection and a softness to the fabrics and the washes. I am also playing with identity and in ways that is more direct than I have been in the last few seasons,” added Rose.
After the show, Rose said instead of throwing a big party as she did in Florence, she will host a quiet drink with the team, and enjoy a big plate of delicious pasta, her favorite Italian dish.
