Martine Rose Brings a “Naughty” Wardrobe to the Streets of Florence

(Pitti Uomo headliners are expected to reference the history of Florence and pour on the Italian-made tailoring for their special collections. According to the show notes, the jeans do in fact connect back to the Renaissance. When Michelangelo was sculpting David, debtors were receiving “public bum-spankings” on the site of the show venue.)

Rose, unafraid to blend references, folded in a seam of spaghetti western-wear, too: some of those cheesy windbreaker jackets and boxy wool overcoats had waves of fringe flowing off the back, turning the quotidian into the stuff of Italo Disco star power. Bulbous clown-toe derbies—one of Rose’s favorite new designs, she said—expanded her lexicon of exaggerated footwear. 

Twisting the uniforms of normal people into runway fashion is a tightrope walk. It can easily veer into dystopia, magnifying the distressing realities of life that clothing can so clearly convey. But Rose’s collections have a much more lighthearted spin: they’re more extreme, for sure, but in a kinky, and occasionally very humorous, in a butt crack-exposing, western fringe-on-an-overcoat kind of way. Rose used the word “fun” a few times to explain those design choices. Over the years, Rose’s distorted designs have been perceived as trollish or intimidatingly cool, but she’s really in the business of creating surprise and delight and a little drama. She might make clothes for the nightclub set, but hers isn’t an exclusionary crowd. It’s a profoundly refreshing approach, and within minutes of the finale, members of the audience—flush with optimism and Aperol spritz—were already discussing the odds that Rose ends up at Louis Vuitton, or maybe even back at Balenciaga. The message being that the upper echelons of luxury fashion could use Rose’s open spirit, foresight, and ability to tease excitement out of the everyday. 

Backstage, the eternally unpretentious Rose, holding one of her children on her hip (a good reminder that she’s one of very few moms among the menswear designer ranks), thanked the locals who walked in the show. “I’m so proud of the cast, many of them had never done [this] before. And they really gave energy and I think paid tribute to Florence in a way that I hoped,” she said. A few minutes later, I ran into one of them, a gentleman with gray hair named Luigi, standing around outside. His hair was sharply slicked back, and he was still wearing the fringed jacket, leather pants, and silk shirt-and-tie from the show. He appeared to fall squarely in the category of cast members who had never walked in a fashion show before. When I offered my congratulations, Luigi shrugged, before flashing a satisfied smile. Another newly-minted Martine Rose fan.