With awards season in full swing, it’s only natural that Roland Mouret should find himself leaning hard into glamour. Few designers, after all, know how to deliver a red-carpet moment with the same combination of dazzle and savoir faire as Mouret, evidenced by stars like Carey Mulligan and Olivia Colman wearing gowns of his at recent events.
At an appointment in his airy, light-filled studio in London’s Clerkenwell neighborhood, however, Mouret explained that his fall collection was really about going back to his roots. “I went back to the ’80s, when I first came to Paris, and there was this real strength of style,” he said, reeling off a list of nightclubs including Chez Régine, Castel, and Le Palace. “It was an amazing period where you dressed up to go to dinner, you dressed up to go dancing, but you could mix with people of all generations—you would go into a club and people could be 20 or 70. I think we’re approaching a similar moment in our society now, where people aren’t going to places just to be with their own tribe or identity. The question for me is: Where does the woman I dress fit into that?”
It’s a fine line to tread—the tightrope walk between the clubby decadence he talked about and the sophistication that keeps celebrities like Mulligan and Colman coming back for more—but it’s also a balance he’s uniquely equipped to attain. Just take the first outfit presented in the look book. A plum-colored ribbed knit top with a peplum panel that folded and curled like the pages of an antique book, paired with an elegant matching wool crepe skirt artfully slashed halfway up the thigh for a bit of va-va-voom: refined and just the right amount of racy. Or a slinky all-black outfit consisting of a bodysuit cut from a pointelle knit to allow for some subtle skin baring, worn under a black column skirt with a ruffle detail at the waist: provocative but all about comfort too. “It’s all about finding the right volume for a woman to wants to wear it,” said Mouret. “That’s the challenge.”
Mouret is a quiet master of volume, here best showcased in a pair of stunning drop-waist gowns in black and midnight blue taffeta featuring dramatic, billowing skirts that had an impressive structural integrity when touched, and that served as a confident contrast to his well-known abilities as a latter-day king of cling. Don’t worry, though, there were plenty more formfitting pieces on offer too. Especially lovely was a series of velvet dresses gently padded at the shoulders and draped to create sinuous lines of chiaroscuro across the chest and hips, beautifully echoing the curves of the wearer’s body. Finally, there were some brasher, clearly ’80s-inspired pieces in there as well, catering to a customer who falls at the more audacious end of the spectrum, whether dresses with folded necklines in a blazing red the color of a fresh, glossy manicure, or razor-sharp trousers and a figure-hugging gown with angular bust details that had been lavished in diamanté for a touch of dark disco fever.
These were all incredibly accomplished clothes from a technical standpoint, and Mouret noted the close relationship he’s developed with his factories and how he now thinks about designing the clothes and producing the clothes synergistically. He keeps the strengths of the factory front of mind, to make the best clothes his customers can buy. “It’s not about putting on a show for me now,” said Mouret, who has published look books since his acquisition by Self-Portrait’s Han Chong in 2021. “It’s about thinking about the structure of the company and what the customer wants—that’s how we’re building the new phase of Roland Mouret.” If that all sounds very sensible, then you only need to look at the seductive qualities of the clothes to see that Mouret still knows how to have plenty of fun.
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