Nordstrom Fashion Blog: Roksanda’s Pastel Assemblages and Delicate Shapes

In the days before SPACE designer Roksanda Illincic’s spring ’16 runway show, her label’s Instagram account sent out images taken from contemporary sculptor Pascale Pierme’s geometric work. Yellow, pink, grays and browns, woodgrain textures. There were also black and white images of arching ballet dancers—from the ’50s?—and torn paper collage elements alongside macro-views of raw set construction.

A sneak peek image of the show invite from Roksanda’s Instagram feed (via Instagram),
and a model and gown detail from backstage (Laura Cassidy)

The seemingly disconnected cues built quietly so that it wasn’t a set of references or inspirations per se, but a mood. Thanks to our earlier interview with her we know this is how Roksanda works; feeding off the feelings of her fuel, not the fuel itself.

Beginning with an air of tenderness and reverence backstage, and developing into a runway show soundtracked by Max Richter’s sharply somber avant-classical “November” and presented inside a labyrinth that transformed a neighborhood community hall, the morning evoked ideas about assemblage and togetherness, control and boundaries, and the spiraling freedom of letting it all go. Come inside and check it out.

The Roksanda line is built of exquisite materials pieced into dramatic shapes. They are not clothes you toss on the floor after you wear them; they are pieces you care for deeply and carefully. And that’s what was happening when I arrived backstage. The pieces were being cared for. The crew and the models were mindful. Thin wisps of hair were crimped, eyes were lined in baby blue and taupe. The girls all seemed to be from some tribe in the Great Far Eastern North.

As the feathery textures of gowns and shoulder details were steamed and fluffed, and as structured silhouettes were pressed and then coaxed back into voluminous shapes, the collection began to remind me of an elegantly pastel take on Pierrot’s Sunday robes.

Styled by venerated Brit Venetia Scott, the presentation itself was a sort of somber celebration. The arching gymnasium ceiling and the graphic painted basketball court flooring acted as a collage with the clothes; the everyday and the otherworldly. The girls were proud and strong; together their bodies were a snake.