Simone Rocha Spring Summer 2025 “A Ballet of Beauty, Fear, and Disturbance”. Story by RUNWAY MAGAZINE. Photo Courtesy: Simone Rocha.

Simone Rocha’s Spring/Summer 2025 collection was more than just a fashion show; it was a masterclass in narrative, emotion, and contradiction. Staged in the venerable Old Bailey, London’s historic criminal court, Rocha’s latest presentation felt like a courtroom drama of its own—rich in nuance, layered with intrigue, and filled with hidden meanings.

The runway became a place where the delicate beauty of ballet collided with darker, unsettling visions, including haunting images of a deformed woman’s face, which appeared as ghostly prints on some garments. It was a collection that did not merely explore beauty but interrogated it, turning it inside out.

Dance as a Core Narrative: Ballet Meets Trauma

Dance, especially the boundary-pushing works of choreographers Michael Clark and Pina Bausch, was a core inspiration. Bausch’s “Nelken,” her exploration of extreme and traumatic love, was notably present in the motifs that threaded through the collection. These carnations appeared as ornamental buttons on suiting, crystal mesh harnesses, hosiery, and delicate knickers, symbolizing beauty that is as fragile as it is violent. This floral touch provided a romantic yet eerie visual language that spoke to both the grace and the raw emotional turmoil of Bausch’s work.

The dance theme extended into the garments themselves, particularly through the knitwear ballet wrap cardigans and sliced woolen coats. These pieces, draped over tutus, evoked the image of dancers caught in a moment between the private and the public, blending the world of rehearsal with the formality of stage wear. There was a deliberate ambiguity—were these performers backstage or characters trapped within a ritual of beauty and expectation?

Rocha’s exploration of beauty took a darker turn with the integration of art by Genieve Figgis. Known for her reinterpretations of canonical paintings, Figgis’s work often distorts and disfigures human faces, adding layers of chaos and discomfort to familiar imagery.

On the runway, these images appeared as prints, haunting the garments like ghosts. The deformed faces seemed to challenge the audience to confront what lies beneath the surface of perfection—an unsettling reminder that beauty can also be disturbing.

These printed garments were powerful statements in a collection that was rich in contrasts. One look featured a black silk satin dress with a full skirt, provocatively pulled open at the front to reveal carnation-embellished underwear. Another presented a couple encased in garments layered with tulle and more floral appliqués, as if preserving them in a fragile, transparent cocoon. These designs spoke to the tension between exposure and concealment, a recurring theme that mirrored the collection’s broader narrative.

Ballet slippers modified with driving shoe soles, Rocha’s ever-evolving embellished Crocs, and glossy duck handbags added playful, unexpected elements. The debut of Rocha-branded indigo denim, cut into workwear shapes and adorned with metallic carnation embellishments, injected a touch of rebellious pragmatism into the collection.

However, the show was not without its critical undertones. The stark contrast between the multidimensionality of the garments and the narrow spectrum of body shapes cast in the show highlighted an industry-wide issue. In a collection that celebrated so many forms of beauty and complexity, the lack of size and shape diversity on the runway felt jarringly out of place.

Simone Rocha’s Spring Summer 2025 collection was an evocative dance of contradictions—a blend of ballet and brutality, beauty and fear, personal and performative. Set against the solemn backdrop of the Old Bailey, the collection did not just tell a story; it posed questions about the nature of beauty, the limits of perfection, and the haunting specters that often hide behind a graceful façade. Rocha’s work continues to challenge the boundaries of fashion, pushing us to look closer, think deeper, and embrace the complexity of the human condition.

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