Designer Simone Rocha defies fashion assumptions.

In the darkness of St Bartholomew’s Cathedral in London, Simon Rocha’s Spring/Summer 2022 collection shined. Inspired by the Dublin-born designer’s experience of giving birth to her second child, a white gown trimmed with ivory satin ribbon flowed effortlessly across the ancient stone floor – there were many white gowns reminiscent of those worn for communion. There were creamy tulle babydoll dresses embellished with delicate pearl designs and sheer dot knit cardigans with bows. And a recurring, and arresting, motif? Nursing bras, adorned with jewels and jewels, their utilitarian purpose made them at once expensive and beautiful.

Something about the collection was quintessentially Rocha. Its odd beauty, yes, its slight weirdness, its dark humor, but a sense of something dark, just on the surface—something uniquely tied to the female experience. It was created when the designer was incredibly “tired and stressed”, she says from her studio. Feminism, for her, is a layered concept. There’s the superficial and the stereotypical—”the definitions of what people think of a woman and a girl,” she says—and then there’s something underneath, something that women have historically been made to hide. Digging into “the blood, the guts, the guts, the practicality” is a designer’s specialty — and she’s not afraid to dig deep.

In today’s world, unapologetically posing as a woman is a rebellious act in itself. In the year Rocha, who founded her brand in 2010, tells some of her clients that walking into her rooms makes them feel like putting on armor and feeling strong. (Incidentally, the designer’s interest in Victorian fashion comes from a fascination with how it celebrates women’s form when it limits the female form, but is largely silent.) “They’re not apologetic clothes,” she says. And of course, Simone Rocha’s signature pieces—gowns adorned with exaggerated volumes, flared smocks and jackets with exaggerated puff sleeves, and pearl-embellished accessories—are almost uniformly a powerful statement of feminine presence. There is no doubt that the designer’s confidence and consistency in beauty is something she grew up around in fashion. The daughter of Hong Kong-born, Dublin-based designer John Rocha, she attended her first cat show at just three months old.

Rocha likens her design process to writing “chapters in the same story.” In fact, a fascinating aspect of her work is how she weaves threads from the most unexpected places into compelling narratives, drawing influences as diverse as Anne Boleyn and Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki. One of the designer’s most consistent influences, however, is her Irish heritage. Many of her collections and her respect for craftsmanship come in nods to Catholicism; Rocha’s trademark ornaments are made “like small sculptures” from the beginning of the design process. Usually, it’s obvious: her Autumn/Winter 2022 collection took the Irish legend of the sons of Lear as a starting point, with elegant hillbilly coats and wide biker jackets with wrinkled, wing-like shapes.

The designer’s latest project—besides, of course, raising two daughters and designing her next collection—is “Girls’ Girls,” a large group she created at Lismore Castle Arts in Ireland. The exhibition, which runs until October 30, uses the work of multi-generational artists to question the female gaze and has a surprisingly Rocha-esque strangeness to it, featuring a painting of conjoined twins by artist Cassie Namoda and a phallic bronze by Louise Bourgeois. Janus in a leather jacket. If she hadn’t been a designer, she might have been an artist—and since Burgos was one of her idols, the project seemed like a good fit for Rocha. (Rocha wrote her college thesis on her and has since collaborated with the Bourgeois Easton Foundation.) What does the designer admire most about her? “She was a very strong artist, but her strength came from the fragility and anxiety of being a woman and then exposing it.”

A talented Rocha can easily express herself.

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