Fashion’s quiet master
John Rocha doesn’t do bling, so like the clothing, homeware, crystal and jewellery he designs, his newly opened flagship store in London’s Mayfair is the epitome of toned down style Words | Dominic Lutyens ALTHOUGH THE FASHION world is generally associated with air-kissing and tantrums, John Rocha couldn’t be more indifferent to its foibles. Not for him either the showmanship of flamboyant fashionistas. Over [...]
John Rocha doesn’t do bling, so like the clothing, homeware,
crystal and jewellery he designs, his newly opened flagship
store in London’s Mayfair is the epitome of toned down style
Words | Dominic Lutyens
Width="120" Height="173" alt="John Rocha, whose new aim is to show that he designs much more
than womenswear">
ALTHOUGH THE FASHION world is
generally associated with air-kissing
and tantrums, John Rocha couldn’t be
more indifferent to its foibles. Not for
him either the showmanship of
flamboyant fashionistas. Over the past
20 years, the signature aesthetic of his apparel – which
he says appeals “as much to rock stars as doctors” – has
drawn mainly on such time-honoured techniques as
hand-knitting and crocheting. Making only the subtlest
changes to his style from season to season, and rarely
straying from a muted palette of black, conker brown,
mother-of-pearl or shell pink, he is the king of quietude.
Width="150" Height="200" alt="A sculpture by artist Xiang Jing stands alongside
John Rocha crystalware in his new flagship store">
Born in Hong Kong of Chinese and Portuguese descent,
Rocha moved to Britain in the 1970s. After a false start
training as a psychiatric nurse, he studied fashion in London.
Punk was the look du jour, but it didn’t float his boat. His
resolutely safety-pin-free degree-show collection featured
voluminous Irish linens inspired by an idyllic holiday spent in
Ireland. So smitten was he by the country that he moved to
Dublin in the 1980s, where he set up his business with his
wife, Odette, and he has been based there ever since.
Recalling his college days, Rocha says: “I was a hippie,
never a punk.” To this day, with his trademark elbowlength,
poker-straight, centre-parted hair and rings as
chunky as knuckle-dusters, he remains the picture of
refined hippie chic.
Width="120" Height="185" alt="The Spring/Summer 2008 collection paraded on the catwalk">
Rocha’s own unchanging image mirrors his disregard
for fashion’s transience. “I’ve based my career on using
traditional crafts to create clothing in modern shapes that
hopefully achieve more than just being here today, gone
tomorrow,” he muses. “People should be able to dig out
a piece from one of my old collections and wear it again.”
Width="120" Height="188">
While it would be fair to say that Rocha has never set
the fashion world alight with radically new ideas, he has
nevertheless kept afloat in the fickle world of fashion (no
mean feat) – and successfully crossed over into homeware.
In 1997, he launched his John Rocha at Waterford Crystal
glassware, and his reasonably priced cushions, throws,
vases and lighting for Debenhams show that he embraces
democratic design. “I don’t believe in doing things for just
one kind of people – one age group, one income bracket.”
An interior designer to boot, he has also created the
interiors of Dublin’s Morrison Hotel, his home in the same
city and residential projects in Birmingham and Budapest.
Width="120" Height="179">
His latest venture is his new shop in Mayfair, which he
launched during London Fashion Week last September, and
which showcases both his clothing and homeware. In one
sense, the shop, his first foray into retail spaces, is a branding
exercise – Rocha wants to draw people’s attention to the
fact that he’s not just a fashion designer: “Hopefully, it will
help people understand that I don’t just do womenswear.”
Width="120" Height="175">
Of course, every aspect of a designer’s shop – from
its style to its location – speaks volumes about his or
her brand. Consistent with Rocha’s understated style,
the shop is on Dover Street, which although a hip quarter
(the ultra-cool emporium Dover Street Market is a few
doors’ away), is nothing like as flashy as nearby fashion
mecca Bond Street.
“I wanted somewhere in Mayfair, but not mainstream
Mayfair,” explains Rocha. Downplaying things further, he
describes his store (formerly a pub, and originally built
in 1686) as a “corner shop”. “I decided to open one in
September 2006,” he expands. “I saw this building two
weeks later, so it’s all been very quick. I loved its discreet
façade, adorned only by a stained-glass window.”
Rocha then worked alongside Dublin architectural
practice Three Moon Design in creating his dream store.
“We hardly touched the exterior, but it needed restoring”
he describes. “The stained-glass windows weren’t in
good condition. Overall, I didn’t want an ostentatious
flagship store. I didn’t want a huge shop window and sign
announcing, ‘Come in and buy’.”
Width="180" Height="152">
Despite his low-key approach, this is a serious venture
for Rocha, who has bought the freehold of the entire fivestorey
building. The 1,810 sq ft shop occupies three floors:
the lower ground is devoted to menswear, the ground
floor to childrenswear, jewellery, homeware and a small
bookshop (selling tomes reflecting Rocha’s tastes, like his
favourite travel destinations and Modernist architecture)
and the first floor to womenswear. He has converted the
top two floors into a 1,120 sq ft duplex for himself: “For
years, I’ve been staying in hotels in London,” he says. “Now
I’ve got a base here.”
Width="150" Height="200">
Despite the building’s size, the shop itself feels intimate,
not showy. It isn’t intimidatingly huge and it’s utterly
different from the practically obligatory hangar-like
environments of your average flagship store. In a conscious
bid to project the quirkiness of the Rocha brand, it’s filled
with idiosyncratic mini-environments, made the more
individual by featuring one-off artworks or flea market finds.
Enter and you are confronted by the surreal sight of a giant
papier-mâché sculpture of a female figure – by the highly
collectible contemporary artist Xiang Jing – peering in a
mirror studded with crystals, which deliberately echoes
Rocha’s designs for Waterford Crystal. Rocha’s Waterford
Crystal confections themselves are dramatically spot-lit on
shelves in a miniature, jet-black room on the ground floor.
On one wall, on the menswear floor, otherwise soberly
fitted with polished concrete and a stark glass table, is an
expanse of decorative 1930s’ French ceramic tiles. Rocha,
who also has a holiday home at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, on
the Côte d’Azur, found these at his favourite flea market in
nearby Nice, which he loves trawling for unexpected finds.
“The stallholder was selling them by the yard, but I said I
wanted the lot,” he recalls. “He practically fell off his chair!”
Other unexpectedly theatrical features include an
elaborate ivory-coloured chandelier hanging above the
staircase on the way to the womenswear floor. On the
latter, lining one wall are what Rocha calls “elephant grey”
velvet curtains. At the far end is yet another intimate and
slightly surreal nook – a miniature conservatory dominated
by a banana tree, giving this area a tropical, hothouse feel.
“I like having greenery,” explains Rocha. “I love tropical
planting. I’ve got lots of banana trees at my house in
France.”
Above all, Rocha wanted to create a “warm” space. “I
don’t want the shop to be sterile or static,” he says. “It will
always be changing, according to the look of each season.”
The changes, though, are unlikely to be sweeping. Just as
Rocha the fashion designer is allergic to shock tactics, so his
approach to interiors is about slo-mo evolution.
John Rocha, 15a Dover Street, London W1,
+44 (0)20 7495 2233; www.johnrocha.ie
OTHER FLAGSHIP BOUTIQUES WITH SIGNATURE INTERIORS
- Dover Street Market, London
- Stella McCartney, London
An ultra-romantic, eclectic interior combines a marquetry
wall with motifs such as flying art nouveau maidens,
decorative hand-made wallpapers and materials like
polished black concrete and limestone. The store is
completed by a perfume room and a garden.
30 Bruton Street, London W1, +44 (0)20 7518 3100;
www.stellamccartney.com- Martin Margiela, Brussels
An eccentric but stylish snow-white interior greets you
as you enter the store of this cutting-edge designer. Light
fittings are shrouded in tulle, all the furniture is recycled and
chairs are hung surreally from the walls.
114 rue de Flandre, Brussels, +32 (0)2 223 7520- Le Form, Moscow
This swanky, spacious shop, with an industrial chic look
of concrete, steel and glass, tempered by romantic details
such as mirrors and chandeliers, touts clothes, footwear and
accessories by the likes of Dirk Bikkembergs, Dries Van Noten,
Ann Demeulemeester, Junya Watanabe and Helmut Lang.
35/28 Ulitsa Povarksaya, Moscow, +7 095 291 8220;
www.leform.ruVisit Flybmi.com to book flights
This store, the brainchild of Comme des Garçons designer
Rei Kawakubo, occupies several floors. It sells a huge
number of ultra-hip fashion brands in what she describes
as “an atmosphere of beautiful chaos”. Expect such quirky
touches as Portakabins for changing rooms and battered
garden sheds housing the till.
17-18 Dover Street, London W1, +44 (0)20 7518 0680;
www.doverstreetmarket.com
