Martine Rose S/S 2020 London Fashion Week Mens

Backstage Martine Rose S/S 2020 — Martine Rose S/S 2020. Photography: Jason Lloyd-Evans

(Image credit: Jason Lloyd-Evans)

Mood board: The collection drew on a 1980s sense of Britishness: tribal subcultures from the New Romantics to football hooligans and proto-ravers that thrived prior to our globalised culture. Garb as cover-up. ‘Your average looking office worker might have a wild alter-ego; the sharp, strictly-coded look of football fans did nothing to suggest the volatile energy they held just beneath the surface,’ Rose said. Resin-dipped shirts and denims were wrinkled, trousers flared and leather biker jackets had bloated shoulders. The silhouette was skewed, the mood manic.

Scene setting: Rose is a proud Londoner. Her shows always make full use of the city as an area for her incisive work. Last summer she closed off a cul-de-sac and invited all of its residents to a street party. Previous seasons have seen the fashion industry pile into Seven Sisters Market and an indoor climbing centre in the suburbs of North London. For the coming season Rose was inspired by post-rave gatherings on Clapham Common in the late 1980s where people from all scenes mingled in blissful harmony until the early hours. Her S/S20 show was staged on the roof terrace of an office block; her models walked on a deconstructed turf catwalk, embraced by the mirrored glass skyline.

Best in show: Whilst the UK struggles to understand its place within global politics, Rose has created a fitting uniform for the disillusioned. Reversible fleeces and t-shirts were emblazoned with ‘Promising Britain’ in child-friendly type above a clown encircled by stars lifted from the European Union. These cartoonish graphics reflected a mad, pantomime time. The here and now.

London based writer Dal Chodha is editor-in-chief of Archivist Addendum — a publishing project that explores the gap between fashion editorial and academe. He writes for various international titles and journals on fashion, art and culture and is a contributing editor at Wallpaper*. Chodha has been working in academic institutions for more than a decade and is Stage 1 Leader of the BA Fashion Communication and Promotion course at Central Saint Martins. In 2020 he published his first book SHOW NOTES, an original hybrid of journalism, poetry and provocation.