Simone Rocha’s Menswear Runway Debut | PLUS World Cup Style

0:05This is The Run Through. I'm Chloe Mal. I'm Nicole Phelps. And today we have Vogue Runway senior fashion news editor Max Berlinger making his podcast debut for Headlines. Hi, Max. Hi, longtime listener. First time caller. Oh, you will hear my conversation with designer Simone Rocha later in the show. I spoke with her just ahead of her men's debut at Pittiwomo. And that is happening today. So go to Vogue Runway and check out the pictures. Chloe and Max, the three of us, are going to do a preview of the men's shows in Milan and Paris. But, Chloe, we want to hear everything about the World Cup game.

0:41It was so much fun. I have to say my husband is a huge soccer person. His father is a soccer coach. So their whole—my in-law's entire life is very soccer-focused. So we've been waiting for the World Cup to come to the U.S. for a long time. I was invited by friends at LVMH to go to the game. It was a very exciting perk of the job. I felt very lucky. And, you know, I have to say, I, you know, I'm half French. And so I'm a longtime fan of Les Bleus, which is what they call the French team. in 1998 when they won. I remember being a 13-year-old and being in France and me and my sister painting our faces and we have this, like, very iconic photo from that day.

1:23And so I hope we can recreate that. But I also love the Senegalese team. They won the Africa Cup and they are fantastic. Everyone looked so great. They're so handsome. And it was just, it was a fantastic game. We were in the French section with near the players' families. And so that was really fun to hear everyone cheering. People were really dressed up. There were a lot of flags worn as capes. Also, a lot of the new Jacquemus by Nike jersey that he designed. They had an event for it on Monday night. And the jerseys are already, they're sold out, but they're like the team's training jersey, not their game jersey.

2:04And there's something about the stripe. It's like the perfect width stripe. It's super chic. It's very narrow. I can't wait. I'm all in on the World Cup. And also the French team with their bags. We wrote about this on the website. Exactly. They all sort of de-planed in Boston, and they all had Chanel bags and these hard-to-get Pharrell Chanel bags or Hermes bags. The World Cup fashion is really fun. I mean, I forget which team member it was, but he was carrying one of the enormous new Mathieu Chanel bag in that Kelly green suede. And I was like, this is a French team. Right, right. This is like French girl style.

2:38Right, right. They're repping the country in many ways. I also am a huge shout out to the Congolese team's outfits. I love the sort of leopard print motif. I love seeing the backstory on that. One of our colleagues, Anna Cofola, has an exclusive interview with the designer who's doing a new suite of looks for them for their first game, which was yesterday. And yes, friend of the pod, Taylor Antrim and his son William were also there. Let's get their dispatch from the game. All right, this is Taylor Antrim, deputy editor at Vogue, and I'm here with William Antrim, age 11. What's your title at Vogue?

3:17Soccer critic? Soccer critic. And we are at the Meadowlands MetLife Stadium, and what section are we in, William? 337. That's right. So we are three rows from the top. We have a bird's eye view of the field, France v. Senegal. They're about to kick off and we're stoked. It looks like every single seat is taken. It's incredible. So more to come.

3:44Okay once again and lastly this is Taylor. We are scooting out of MetLife Stadium five minutes early because there are over 80 ,000 people here and William and I have to take the train all the way back to Brooklyn so we feel confident with France up 2-0. They've got the result. What Yeah, I'm feeling pretty confident. The two goals they scored was very good, and they're playing much better this half. It's really a tale of two halves. France came on strong in the second half, and it looks like they're going to take this one. That's it for us. Over and out. Bye.

4:20And staying on sports theme for a moment, let's talk about Nick's parade that is happening today, Thursday the 18th. It is set to be one of the biggest parades in New York City in history. Honestly, were you guys out and about on Saturday night? Oh, yeah. It was amazing. The East Village was very loud. It's always loud on Saturday nights, but it was exceptionally loud. Wow. I was sort of jealous we were out of town, and I felt like it would have been a really fun moment. Our colleague Sam Sussman really, I think, it was the best night of her life. Truly. The best night of a lot of people's lives, I think.

4:55And actually, some of the Knicks were at the game yesterday, including the adorable OG and Anobi, and people were going nuts for them. And then I saw a video on Derek Blazberg's Instagram. He was having dinner at the Polo Bar, and Coach Mike Brown walked into the Polo Bar, and everyone stood up in a standing ovation. It's just this really exciting moment in New York. I'm so excited about the parade. We have a photographer and a writer attending. We're going to get a scene report. Everyone's going to be looking great. We might be able to see it through the window. Yeah, it starts down here. It'll be interesting to get to work.

5:27It's going to go up Broadway. Oh, so we will. So I think we can go to the conference room and we'll be able to watch. Oh, fun. We'll be there. Yeah, exactly. All right. Should we move on to the shows? Let's go. Max, you're headed to Paris next week, but first comes Milan. And tomorrow being Friday, it's the first day. The big name on the calendar is Ralph Lauren, which is so interesting. He has only done a few men's shows ever. on the runway. And here he is two seasons in a row now in Milan. What do you make of this Ralph Assange? Well, I think the response to last season's show was really stellar.

6:03People were, I think he took Polo and Ralph Lauren and sort of mixed it all together. And I just remember when that show hit the runway, people were going bananas. And I think build on that. And I also know that Tom Brown is also showing there. So there's sort of a small little like American contingency happening in Italy, which is kind of fab. Very Henry James. Yeah, yeah, totally. So there's just, you know, I think a lot of people are showing their men's and women's together. So it's a little bit of a light week in Milan. So it's nice to have other people doing like a proper men's only show while you're there because, you know, Prada will have one.

6:40Armani will have one. But, you know, Gucci and Gucci shows men's and women's together. together. Speaking of Prada, what do you think we can expect? I think last season that was really notable was that very, very skinny, like attenuated silhouette, right? And two seasons ago, spring 26, I think we saw those men's bloomers. So what do you think we could get this time around? You never know with Muccia. It's like that's sort of the fun guessing game. And then after the show was sort of trying to pick apart the references and where she sort of blended this and that. But I've also, my big thing with Prada lately is the shoes have been really interesting.

7:20They had that collapsed sneaker, which I feel like really. I don't know what that is. It's like the real, it has a, it's very, very flat and it has like an elasticated back. And it, like, if you take your foot out, it's like very flat. But I think it was sort of part of the whole low profile sneaker movement. It was maybe the first one. And then they have the America's Cup, which is, they brought back, which is sort of hot right now. They had that plimsoll sneaker last season, which I feel like everybody, Jonathan at Dior had a plimsoll. It was sort of a big sneaker moment last season. So I always like to see the shoe.

7:50The shoe is like, you know, a really interesting moment for them. Well, you and your colleague Christian Allaire have been doing a little experiment, right, with low profile shoes. Yes, we've been wearing dance shoes because we've seen them in a lot of shows. Michael Ryder, Celine had one, Bottega had one. They're sort of these like dancey Broadway classic. classic. I think of them as Serge Gansberg shoes. Well, we got the original. We asked Repetto to send us someone we've been wearing. You'll read about it on the site, but I do not love it on foot and did not love the way it looked. But everyone kept being like, oh, my God, I love your shoes.

8:25Your shoes are so cool. So now I'm changing my tune. Wow. I know I do love the Repetto dance shoes. And fun fact from stylist Dara Allen told me that you can go upstairs at Rapeto and get a custom color. So Dara, every time she's in Paris, she gets a custom color. How chic. I know. It was a good, if you know, you know. Other big names, obviously, in Milan is Mr. Armani. And it is going to be Leo Del Orca's second season, I think, presenting Armani after Armani's passing. Yeah, it's interesting to see sort of where they want to take that company without the founder. I think it's interesting they released that Archivo, Archivo, how do you say it?

9:09Archivo. Yeah, that collection, which, you know, I mean, he's always in the air, but especially I think in the last couple of years, that sort of loose Lausch suit has been happening. And then I think it was super smart of them to sort of go back to the archives in a very literal way and bring these things back. And they just like a testament to his legacy that it looks so, so modern. I saw Renata Reinsva wearing one recently and she just looks so, so cool. She didn't. She wore Stellan Skarsgård's suit. Oh, that's right. That was an amazing. We love a co-star homage in the most literal sense. Yeah.

9:45OK, so it sounds like Milan, they're sort of usual suspects plus a few. Plus the Americans. What's happening in Paris? You know what I read about yesterday morning was J.R.'s installation on the Paul Neuf, which is the first time the Paul Neuf has been taken over since Jean-Claude and Christo did it famously. but he has covered it in like thousands of yards of fabric and then inflated it to look like craggly mountains. And when you go inside, it feels like you're inside a cave and it's up until the 28th of June. So I hope you'll go. And I feel like we should do something about like menswear X taking over the Poulneuf.

10:20Oh yeah, for sure. Bring Phil O with you and get some pictures. I was thinking you should send Phil to the Poulneuf. What is it made out of? Because famously now I was looking at the weather report and it's going to be a scorching heat wave the entire week. It's like 100 degree, 90 degree, so it'll be... Well, that'll be some shade. But will it be like insulated and like rubbery and... Possibly. No, it's fabric. You'll be sweating no matter what, so it'll be fine. Okay, so what's happening in Paris? I think the big thing that every... I just actually spoke to a couple of menswear experts for this site.

10:50It's live on the site, and we were talking about just where menswear is right now, things they're excited about. And a lot of them just kept talking about Michael Ryder's Celine, and he's doing his first standalone men's catwalk show this season. So that will be a really amazing thing. Didn't he do that last year? Wasn't that his first? There were women's. Oh, there's women's looks. It was a co-ed show. So it'll be the first standalone catwalk for men. You can read in the summer issue a great profile on Michael and sort of I think people are really responding to what he does. It's sort of this like American pragmatism.

11:24It's like French savoir faire. It's very, you know, relatable, but still has finesse. It's a very cool thing. So to see his sort of men's only vision crystallized on the runway will be really exciting. I think it's going to be Jonathan Anderson's third men's standalone catwalk show. And he sort of has done two very different things over the last two seasons. So I think seeing a third will help us sort of get our minds around what he sees the men, the Dior man looking like these days. And then a lot of usual suspects. Dries is always a highlight. Rick Owens is always a highlight. I always love seeing like what the Japanese are thinking with Comb and Yoji and Issey Miyake.

12:05So that's always fun. There's a lot of appointments. There's a lot of things that are like off the catwalk that'll be interesting to see to like younger designers or smaller designers that don't have runway shows. Well, I will be watching from afar. And one thing I'm curious about being a fan of Sarah Burton at Givenchy is she is going to debut her her menswear vision. I don't think it's a show. It's more of a appointment presentation situation. But we haven't seen a lot of it other than on Timothee Chalamet during his Marty Supreme tour. The Butter Yellow. Interesting. And Totem also debuting menswear I read yesterday.

12:44Yes. Yeah, lots of menswear. Everybody wants in. I mean, I have to say, some of my favorite pieces from Sarah's last Givenchy collection was the suiting for women and the sort of androgynous styling. And so I think that sounds very of a piece. Right. And I think you just mentioned sort of the last Prada show being very like skinny. And it's like we've been in such an era of big oversized clothes sort of ushered in by Demna's Balenciaga. And what did he do? He did sort of this leaner silhouette. I think that. At Gucci now. At Gucci now, yes. And so I think it's interesting that, yeah, like I would imagine Sarah's silhouette will probably be pretty sharp.

13:20And I think that, yeah, we're going to slowly start seeing maybe we've reached the peak bigness and we're sort of like going back and sort of finding the silhouette being a little bit leaner. People are loving skinny jeans. Yeah. I just want to give a shout out to Zane Lee, who is a CFDA Vogue Fashion Fund finalist, because he is on the schedule. And we chose him to be part of the fund this year. And it's been nice to get to know him a little bit. Yeah. Now even more eyes will be on him. Right. I love his stuff. And it was such a treat going to his show last season. It felt like really the place to be.

13:57Totally. And Simon Port-Jacques-Moos ending Paris Men's Fashion Week with a show on the road in Corsica. I hear there's a plane full of models headed from Paris to Corsica. We love the Jacques-Moos. Air Jacques-Moos. I know. But you had an incredible sighting. It was so exciting. I went to go get peanuts at the game yesterday, and suddenly I see handsome Simon Jacques-Moos just waiting in line for refreshments. and he was wearing his new Jacquemus and Nike little capsule collection that they did for the French national team, and he was wearing the white windbreaker. And I was like, oh, so chic.

14:36He goes, they're completely sold out. Very exciting sighting and definitely the popular collab of that game. He goes to the food stand just like us. And I asked him to tell us who he was cheering for. Raleigh les bleus. Could you raleigh les bleus? I did.

14:59That's it for our preview of the upcoming men's shows in Milan and Paris. Please pay attention to what we're posting on Vogue Runway all weekend and into next week. And let's go straight into the conversation with designer Simone Rochelle.

15:23This week on Critics at Large, we're talking about Steven Spielberg and his blockbusters, Jaws. Jurassic Park. Of course, E.T. They're all classics for a reason. Does his latest, Disclosure Day, come close to those heights? There's a lot riding for the movie business on this question, and then for the culture sense of itself as large? Are movies still important? Are people going to the cinema still a thing? Are the youth like we were? All of those questions, those big cultural questions are coming up through Disclosure Day. Join me, Vincent Cunningham, and my co-hosts on Critics at Large. New episodes every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.

16:12Welcome back to the podcast, Simone. It's been two and a half years since you were on the show the last time. You've had a lot going on since then. Wow. Two and a half years. Time flies. One of the reasons we have you on today is because you are in Florence, where you are the guest designer of Pitti Womo. And that might surprise some people who haven't been paying close attention, the WOMO part of it, i.e. man, because you are officially, for the very first time, right, putting a full menswear show on the runway. Absolutely. Yes, the first time it'll be a full menswear proposition and that I've kind of officially moved to the men's calendar.

16:53And I'm looking forward to sharing it with everybody. So explain to us why this is happening now. I think it was 2022, so several years ago already, when you launched the menswear. and why do this runway show now? So, you know, the way that I am, I really like to kind of take the time to kind of define and refine what I'm doing before I put it out there. And it's kind of how I've really built everything as part of my world. So even though the men's originally started in conjunction with the women's, this felt like the right opportunity to kind of give it its own language and to give it a moment to let it stand on its own two feet.

17:39What can you tell us about the location you've chosen in Florence? You know, it's such a beautiful city. But for me, what was really important was not to almost be overtly be seduced by showing in Florence. And like, I wanted to pick a space that felt very authentic to my world. And when I came and saw it, we're showing in the opera theatre. And I really loved this idea of, you know, when I think of Florence, and I visited before, and my memory as a child was how bright the light is. And I loved this idea of bringing people into the darkness almost and displacing them. And I wanted that when I look back on this show, it feels like just another chapter in my story.

18:32So specifically, when I was showing Autumn Winter in London, I was showing in Alexander Palace in the theatre and I was just introducing a bit of what the men's was going to be like as its own proposition. And then it was a lead to the fact that I would show here for pity and actually bring the collection up onto the stage as the kind of final character as part of this menswear proposition. So that's why we're here. and currently I'm underneath the stage in one of the dressing rooms. Wow. Is it the beginning of a new habit for you? Will you be on the men's calendar going forward? Yeah, I think it is the beginning of something.

19:15You know, it's something that we've been talking about a lot and, you know, I only like to do things if I can do it properly and do it with a long-term goal. So yeah, after we show, I will then bring the collection with me to Paris where we will meet all our buyers and friends and all of that as well. If you were to stay on the men's calendar, do you think you would choose Paris as a venue or are you undecided at the moment? Undecided, but I will always try to show where I can do justice to that collection. It's kind of how I tend to approach things. So Vogue Runway and before that, Style.com has been faithfully covering your women's collections for years.

20:03And I think it's quite interesting to hear from you about the beginnings of this menswear line. I might have the story wrong, but I think you started hearing about customers, men, who were shopping the women's line. Is that correct? Yeah, it's a mix. That's something that absolutely happened. And I think it's also something that I think people feel about clothes today in a more human, personal way. And I think that meant that no matter what gender, you could kind of step into the world. So I was being introduced to more men that way through the stores and through projects and collaborations. And that is kind of was the initial spark.

20:47But then, you know, I really started thinking, what would a masculine proposition be to kind of counteract the feminine proposition that is very much my DNA? And that's how it kind of started growing legs and like looking at these codes of menswear and how to re-textualize them through kind of my lens. And what would that look like, signing on its own two feet? So talk about building this menswear side of the business. Did you find, you know, as an independent label that there were challenges to expanding in this way? Of course. You're sure. Yes. But, you know, being independent, you know, it's a spirit I've really inherited, you know, from the way that I've built my business.

21:40And bringing menswear into it has taken a lot of, you know, hard work, but also a lot of collaboration, teamwork. You need ideas, you need excitement, you need ambition, you know. And all of these things stacked up. It felt like actually this is something that could really be good for the business and bring something to bring something to the world and help, you know, expand and grow in that way. It is remarkable to to be a successful independent label these days, especially in the fashion world that is so dominated by these conglomerates. And so I'm curious about Simone Rocha's day-to-day. Do you divide it up?

22:24Is it like one day you're designing, the next day you're looking at the numbers with your business team? Or how do you sort of manage that split brain aspect of doing this? So I kind of split the week, actually. So I tend to do fittings on Mondays and Wednesdays. and then I tend to kind of the days in between is when I do kind of everything else so I and I split my men's fittings my women's fittings and then I split my accessories knitwear jewelry and then in between all of that then also go through everything to do with the stores everything to do with the business everything to do with strategy but I think it just becomes a very you have to be a little bit regimented you know what I mean and like so my days they're quite strict actually if I'm being honest except for the fitting days where we put aside the whole day for fitting and then people don't really come to me and I can be in a day with the fitting with the design team with the atelier but otherwise the other days I'm kind of quite strict with all the different whether it's financial or distribution or a project or working with one of my partners like Adidas, you know, it just depends on the day.

23:43But you learn to multitask, I'll put it that way. Yes, yes, we're familiar with that at Vogue as well. Well, talk about being independent. Have you ever been tempted to take a creative director job somewhere else? I mean, it's always very nice to be asked or to be in a conversation, you know, I mean, of course. You know, I feel very lucky that I've managed to do projects like Jean Volgothier, etc., that I kind of get to see things from the other side. And today, that really has satisfied this itch that you would scratch, I would say. Hmm. There is a phenomenon that we've noticed here at Vogue that the successful brands that have been built in the 21st century, a lot of them are led by women designers.

24:33And we sometimes wonder if that's because the people hiring for creative director jobs have a prejudice towards men and women just have to do it on their own. Yeah, and maybe you have to do it on your own terms, you know, and there's so many women that I admire, you know what I mean, from Raekha Kuvu to Phoebe Philo to Gia Prada. You know, it's all people that have their own identity and it paved their own way. And I think it is, I think there's something pragmatic about it, which I think slices through this idea that being a woman in that role is a certain thing. I think it's always two pronged, you know.

25:16And I think it's a case of, yeah, getting down and doing it, you know, and doing it on your own terms. Well, in your case, it might be that fashion is in your blood, right? Your father is a designer. And according to our research, you were at your first fashion show when you were less than a month old. It is true because my birthday is in September. So I'm officially on the calendar. Yeah, it's very much in my blood. And it's like I was saying, it's very much how I've inherited my independent spirit. Yeah, it's been incredible. actually, to be able to, I still work with my parents, you know, my label is kind of a family business.

26:00And it's been incredible to grow up on the inside of something because then it doesn't make it an alien thing, you know. So that's, for me, that's the big thing that it doesn't feel too alien. So that gives you an opportunity when you're in it to push and pull and do things and think out of the box and not be so nervous. And it gives you a sense of self, which is something that I feel very fortunate and maybe that you need. What are your early memories? I mean, when did you understand that dad was a fashion designer? Do you know what? I kind of grew up in the studio. I loved it. I wasn't a very studious student.