About 20 years ago, two icons of French cinema, Isabelle Huppert and Catherine Frot, appeared in a debut feature film by director Alexandra Leclère called “Les Soeurs Fachées” (it was distributed as “Me and My Sister” in English). That classic country mouse versus city mouse dramedy about sisterhood, style, and strife well illustrates the Rochas woman, designer Charles de Vilmorin said during a recent Zoom interview.
“I wanted to recount her through that clash of two worlds, as a sophisticated woman who has a touch of whimsy, transcribed through volume and unexpected texture or color,” he said. As in the film, he wanted a sartorial confrontation that was “violent.” For pre-fall, his Rochas silhouettes are long and lean, but offset with out-of-character touches, for example a houndstooth coat has a “craftsy” texture and is shown here with high-gloss red stilettos. A sophisticated skirt in tiny wool check reprises the classic pencil
shape, but with an explosion of very feminine ruffles that the designer described as moving “like fins moving through water.” It’s a strong piece, here paired with a body-con turtleneck in blazing orange. For the bold, a bustier number black and marigold brocade might go with
low boots in tonal python.
Vilmorin’s job at Rochas is to respect a certain heritage while also making the house feel new. In the past, he’s shown a tendency to over-maximalize. With this, his seventh collection, he manages to show his tailoring chops, tone things down a bit, and still jazz
things up with hot color—yellow, orange, red—and unexpected textures. If not everything convinces, there are several pieces here—suiting in white brocade, a swing coat in quilted black vinyl-laminated wool, or a brocade bomber—that speak clearly to both sides of the
Rochas equation.
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