Throwback to the Rodarte universe

Founded in 2005, Katherine and Laura Mulleavy’s brand “Rodarte” held the weight of representing originality and creative independence (traits linked to London-based brands) within the American commercial fashion scene. With their indie way of doing everything, from the making of their clothes to their sets and communication, the Mulleavy sisters became synonymous with the rise of the girl culture inspired, nostalgic aesthetic of the late ’00s and early 10’s. Sofia Coppola muses like Kirsten Dunst and Elle Fanning became a core part of the brand and formed an alternative type of “It Girl” that had anyone who did not fit in the mainstream fashion mould of Michael Kors and Tommy Hilfiger fangirling over Rodarte, making the universe around the brand resemble a subculture.

A less explored element of Rodarte is the brand's aesthetic interpretations of  ‘dark romanticism’. The designers created their brand on a big pile of cultural research and their pieces reflect that body of life-long investigations on the runway, their commercial collaborations, and artistic projects. Often inspired by the romantics of life and death, the Rodarte clothes are oscillating between the dreaminess of soft, light materials and the sinister macabre of leather and dark lipstick. 10 years after the creation of the label, the brand’s philosophy can be beautifully and cohesively displayed in their Fall 2016 Ready-to-Wear Collection, a sartorial articulation of dark romanticism.

“When we first graduated from college and moved home, we wanted to save some money, so we watched horror films for like, a year!” Laura and Kate Mulleavy said in an interview with Dazed Digital. Deeply inspired by horror films and the cinematic arts at large (which contributed to the strong link between the Rodarte and the LA film scene), their 2016 collection aimed to deliver the notion of the devilish. Dark Romanticism has a lot to do with the dark side of humanity and our self-destructive nature. Vogue Runway reports that the designers paid a visit to Caffe Trieste during their trip to Berkeley, where it is speculated that Francis Ford Coppola wrote the script for ‘The Godfather’, the film that motivated the collection’s general direction.

The dreamy runway set of the show designed by Alexandre de Berak along with the sound of the covers of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” and Leonard Cohen’s “Hey That’s No Way to Say Goodbye” contributed to the eerie ambiance, putting the audience in great anticipation even before the models walked out. The pink and white neon lights illuminate the incongruous combination of flowers and dirt, scattered on the sides. The flowers, weeds, and dirt visually resemble a graveyard or a forbidden garden, spaces used as set references in various runways of the duo. The show, however, is far from dreary or depressing. The splash of neon colours adds a sense of playfulness to the heavy ‘graveyard’ atmosphere as if to remind us that all this talk of darkness and melancholia is but a theme for an extravagant dress-up. This is the charm of Rodarte as a brand, the witty and tasteful expression of Dark Romanticism and the grotesque that is just enough to satisfy melancholic fashion-lovers while maintaining a certain standard of commerciality.

The ‘grave-yard’ set built up great apprehension for the viewer. The dark and the sinister are articulated in leather and lace with the models wearing thick leather blazers over delicate sheer lace dresses- a Rodarte trademark. The runway turns white as a set of all-white lace dresses claim their place on the runway worn by nymph looking models, with flowers on their hair that look like they walked out of a John Everett Millais painting.

Through the contrasting yet cohesive looks, Rodarte’s Fall/Winter 16' perfectly articulates the identity of a brand that never compromised the references which comprised its world in the name of wearability, exploring questions like ‘Is there such a thing as pure good and pure evil?’, a line of inquiry that inspired many pieces of literature of Romanticism. Rodarte did not simply make good dresses, they created a wave of designers who urged the wearer to engage in the culture that these dresses were created by.

Words: Jay Kim
Collages: Georgia Canning