London native Martine Rose delivers a powerful debut at Milan Fashion Week, showcasing prosthetic noses, pencil skirts, and honest conversations about her hometown.
"Rose spoke about her upcoming show during Milan Fashion Week, stating she wanted it to be a bit chaotic yet beautiful, not in a conventional way. This unconventional approach is a hallmark of her brand and has helped her become one of the most popular and influential designers of her generation.
Besides running her independent label, which she launched in 2007 and was later invested in by The Tomorrow Group in 2021, she has worked behind the scenes for prominent fashion houses like Balenciaga, was shortlisted for the LVMH Fashion Prize, and won the Menswear Designer of The Year award at the 2023 Fashion Awards.
For her Spring-Summer 2025 show, she continued to question traditional notions of masculinity and tailoring. The collection, described as expressing beauty from disturbance, humor, and sex, featured whipstitched T-shirts with tartan shorts and fishnet socks, a "party shirt" with her studio team's headshots, and oversized tailored pieces with narrow waists and broad shoulders.
Rose explained, "There's a familiar twist, but I never aim for things to be shocking. The things I put on the catwalk are genuine proposals for men." This was evident in the sporty polo shirts and bright cagoules paired with pencil skirts.
Rose also had prosthetic noses added to every model, all of whom were street-cast in Milan. She does this for all her shows, emphasizing the importance of the "local hero."
Milan seems fitting for Rose's brand, both sharing an air of mystery upon first impression. While Milan's stern architecture hides its hidden gardens and warm hospitality, Rose's catwalk shows offer a confronting setting and attitude, serving as a gateway to a creative conversation with a community focus. Milan, much like her shows, reveals itself slowly.
Instead of returning to London after showing in Florence and Paris, Rose chose Milan for this season, dealing another blow to London's menswear schedule, once a hub of emerging talent, but now suffering from the loss of key brands like JW Anderson, A-Cold-Wall, and Wales Bonner over the past six years.
Rose expressed her disappointment with the lack of investment in the industry in London, stating, "Every other European city seems to take [creativity] seriously, and that makes me sad. And then, of course, layer on Brexit, and it's actually a disaster for all of the creative sector."
Despite the significant contribution of the UK fashion industry to the UK economy, standing at nearly £21 billion, according to the BFC, and fashion graduates taking top positions at international fashion houses for decades, Rose finds it frustrating and depressing that the industry is not taken seriously in London. She noted, "As soon as you get any particular type of sort of success and recognition, you have to move to Paris or Italy to get seen, the natural thing is to leave London, and that’s ridiculous."
After the overwhelming response to Sunday's show, it seems that Milan is reaping the benefits of London's loss."
