For Martine Rose, home is where the heart is

For her upcoming SS26 show, Martine Rose was thinking hard about the economy. ​“Institutionally, London maybe feels slightly more defunct and more hopeless right now. But people come together and find a way – and I find that exciting,” the designer says, sitting in a Ergo Tek chair, hair scraped back, wearing a simple black vest in her North London studio.

To mark the collection – and Martine’s first show on British soil after a short stint in Milan – she’s setting up shop in a derelict Lisson Grove job centre this weekend, which will be populated by 22 vendors selling records, glasses, kitsch jewellery, lewd T‑shirts and everything in between. The show will sit on the first floor of the three-storey building, with the market stalls on the floor below; if you’re not able to attend, you’ll still be able to shop from the vendors for a full 24 hours, all open to the public. Genius, eh? “[This is about telling] a story of resilience and creativity,” Martine says. “[Doing the show in a job centre is] about telling a wider story about the sort of people that contribute towards the cultural, creative life of London.”

The British-Jamaican designer’s absence from the London Fashion Week’s men’s schedule last June was both glaring and a gut-punch, given an already dwindling men’s line-up. On the menu in Milan last season? Bulbous prosthetic noses, rave flyers slapped with images of archive Martine Rose and scraps of material hanging from the ceiling of a co-working space in the city’s business district.

Now, back in her element – and her home city – Martine is in a different headspace. The designer often holds up a mirror to the marginalised communities and subcultures of London, from ​’90s raves to a red-hot derelict sauna in Vauxhall (SS23), to mundane North London community centres (SS24). This time, she’s set her sights on the capital’s market traders. Think Roman Road vendors flogging knock-off designer tees, Whitechapel market’s vibrant array of exotic foods and old records, or fruit and veg sellers trying to shift produce on Peckham’s Rye Lane. And so, as she ruminated on this decades-old trade, the flicker of an idea was born.

“I don’t start with one theme. It’s always a feeling and a sort of character. [These vendors,] they just plow on. They do their thing. They work really hard and make do, you know what I mean?” she says. ​“It contributes enormously to this country, this city. [The show] is a story about that and a celebration of culture and independence.”

Martine initially enlisted a small circle of friends to take part in the affair, but much like any production in her universe, the idea shapeshifted, eventually taking on a life of its own. That takes a village. “[We have] a bespoke glasses-maker who made our glasses in 2018. There’s Chris Peckings Price selling records – his dad was the first distributor of reggae music in the UK. It’s just a vibe.”

For this SS26 collection, things oscillate between being outright sexy and off-kilter – not unfamiliar territory for Martine. Proportion play is the main event, leading to shrunken, awkward silhouettes that ​“almost feel too small”. Second-skin lycra pieces, leather and denim, meanwhile, are ​“contorted, pulled and stretched across the body in funny ways”, frilly aprons make a cameo, and barbershop capes are reimagined into ponchos.

The show will also serve as a platform for Martine to unveil a new Nike collaboration – keep your eyes and ears to the ground as the drop is expected next month. Familiar archetypes that reappear on Martine’s runway include Harrington and puffer jackets, both of which have been suctioned, pulled and played with. ​“It’s nice when you can look at something and get the joke,” she continues, a glint in her eye, referring to the ballsy humour she tends to inject into her shows. ​“The references to the barbershop and the aprons and all of that…There are these moments of lightness that break it up a little bit.”

Martine’s enduring ability to keep relentlessly looking forward, allowing instinct to guide a collection is a rarity in fashion nowadays, particularly when references tend to supersede all else. A stone’s throw from Duomo in Milan or walking along the cobbled streets of Soho, she’s focused on the next generation of people who are noticing her work. ​“The only way to feel contemporary is to reference what’s happening now. I’m plugged in not because I feel I need to be, but because I want to be.”

And what does one of fashion’s most down-to-earth designers make of all the whiplash-inducing creative director appointments this year? ​“I just think it becomes less relevant to people,” she says matter-of-factly. ​“I think that [with] all of the changes in fashion, at some point, you switch off.” Her Shox are firmly planted in London for the foreseeable, she assures us. ​“I’m like a boomerang, I’ll always come home.” We wouldn’t have it any other way, Martine.