Martine Rose Reflects On 10 Years Of Creating Tribe-Inspired Wardrobes

In the past year, 37-year-old London-born-and-based designer Martine Rose has made a triumphant return to the London Fashion Week Men’s catwalk schedule, created a capsule collection with Italian casual brand Napapijri, continued to work with Demna Gvasalia on his radical renovation of the house of Balenciaga, and given birth to a second child, Reuben. What a year. From the moment Martine Rose launched her eponymous line in 2007 she has ignored well-trodden paths, defied expectation, and cultivated her own way within the fashion industry. Over ten years Martine has subverted and reimagined male archetypes, from bankers to bus drivers, mountaineers to couriers and ravers. Volume, proportion, and fabrication are used in dynamic ways to blur the line between the familiar and the unconventional. She playfully probes the former functionality or past popularity of certain aesthetic tribes. “For me, it’s about making the ordinary extraordinary,” Martine explained after her spring/summer 18 show, set inside a Tottenham-based climbing gym. Oversized sportswear silhouettes were paired with cycling shorts to evoke the energy of dance culture, granddad suiting fabrics were teamed with “Rose” branded belt-buckles as she delved deeper into her explorations of the everyman. Read more at i-D.