She will be the Guest Designer at Pitti Immagine Uomo 103.
Martine Rose is a British-Jamaican designer, founder of the eponymous menswear brand that has profoundly transformed men’s fashion.
She began designing clothes at a very young age, when the general menswear scene was essentially characterized by classic English man silhouettes, with the clutch pocket and blazer. She, chiseled in the London suburbs among subcultures, is inspired by the Ravers, Ultras, multi-ethnic communities that populate the neighborhoods of Brixton, Brick Lane, and her native Bethnal Green. But those she loves most are the people on the fringes of fashion. Those who do not bend to the dictates of the industry, at the cost of seeming anachronistic or strange.
He borrows the imagery of English soccer uniforms and the aesthetic symbols that identify “Dad Uncool” and Nerds, remixing them into a unique and unprecedented language all his own. She gives new meaning to the extravagance that characterizes every human being, regardless of whether they are part of a community or subculture.
Martine Rose’s collections always express something “disconcerting” yet “reassuring” as they draw on silhoeutte, prints or styles already visited-sometimes hated, sometimes madly loved. Among his most iconic pieces is the soccer jersey designed “distorted” to which Rose and his early fanbase, is very fond of. Fans wear teams’ tees inside out as a sign of protest, over some Daspo or penalty on the field deemed unfair, Martine Rose has reinterpreted this symbolism by making it a fashionable quirk.
In 2019, she reworked one of Nike’s most “anonymous” considered sneakers and literally “changed their connotations,” deforming their silhouette as if they had been hit from the inside with hammer blows; or she designed a T-Shirt that read “Martine Rose is probably the best designer in the world,” aping Carlsberg’s (English Ultras’ identifying beer) Claim: “Probably the best beer in the world.”
This explosive mix of brazenness, irony, and attitude toward outsiders make Rose one of the world’s boldest and most brazen designers.
A myriad of trends has been born thanks to her: her work in the Menswear world is one of the most influential of the last decade, while remaining an underground brand.
