Back to the office slog: does anyone really want it? One well-dressed group certainly doesn’t. “The Martine Rose man and woman have always been proudly, happily, and TOTALLY unprofessional,” reads a press release for the London-based label’s AW22 collection, which takes its cues from the half-life we’ve been living over the past two years. Where work, home, sleep, sex, and day-to-day routines all melted into one, brain-numbing reality.
Where Rose thrives is her curiosity to subvert the mundane. Here she fashions wonky tailoring from shell suit fabrics, purposefully wrinkles Canadian tuxedos – made from Japanese pleated denim – and wraps shoulders in piled-up quilted scarves that look a bit like if you cocooned yourself in one of your nan’s quilts. Taking her lads and gals to a sparse office block to photograph the collection, Rose crafts a look that can take you from the confines of your flat to your 9-5, straight to a pub afterwards. Like sportswear, cut especially slouchy and worn beneath ditzy floral dressing gowns. If a look were ever to epitomise popping to the offy whilst you WFH to buy a few tinnies and a grab bag of Quavers, this would be it. Fit for a Zoom call, dressed up enough for the dancefloor, and equipped for a hangover day on the couch: Martine Rose means business (with pleasure).
Photography by Pascal Gambarte.
