Sometimes, when they’re recycling trends, designers must thank their lucky
stars that the fashion world behaves as if it’s suffering from short-term
memory loss most of the time. But what of a designer relaunching himself
after an absence of almost two years? In 2005 Roland Mouret was one of the
industry’s brightest meteors. After seven years of incremental but steady
growth, a certain tailored dress of his – wasp-waisted, breast-cupping,
hip-defining – had propelled his name on to the world stage in a way that no
other designer with the diminutive budgets that Mouret commanded has
managed. The tiny company with tiny budgets was about to turn a profit, go
strato-spheric even. And then Mouret, aged 45, had an almighty row with his
business partners, Sharai Meyers and her husband André; he found himself
without a studio, without a job and, more seriously, without his name, which
was owned by the Meyers.
Cut to this morning, in Paris no less, where Mouret unveils RM: a collection
of just 21 (a third of the norm) perfectly executed items that are as
tightly edited as the new label which, for legal reasons, he now operates
under. What are they like? Do they match up to That Dress? Is this the right
moment for tailoring? So many questions, chief among which must surely be:
do we still care about Mouret? If we care at all about fashion we do. In the
autumn of 2005 the Galaxy dress (as Mouret christened it), was worn by
Sienna Miller, Keira Knightley, Angelina Jolie, Demi Moore and so on down
the celebrity chain. It didn’t single-handedly change the face of fashion
(we are now in the midst of a schlock-fest of leggings and mini smock
dresses that pander to the kidult) but it did offer an alternative vision,
one that celebrated womanly curves, and not in a sleazy, fetishistic or
stiff 1950s parodic way, but with a modern, slick edge. Women loved his
clothes, not least because they could mix them with more casual pieces. So
did their men. Watered-down versions of the Galaxy still crop up in high
street collections. But we need Mouret to come up with some fresh ideas.
Seeing his new collection in his East London studio in a building that was
once a Ragged School (tomorrow you can see the catwalk footage on
netaporter.com), I am struck by the familiarity of the nipped waists and
sloping shoulders and by the unfamiliarity of the cutting – less
constricting over the stomach and hips than previously, but still fitted.
There’s a skirt with slouchy pockets and curved hem; a drapey kimono coat
that would be sleek and forgiving over skinny trousers, a fitted sheath
dress that pouches slightly over the hips, slim but loose silk vests with
satin collars that combine the elegance of a Chanel blouse with a T-shirt –
all in cream, black, navy and a barely there grey, with zips to give it all
a quasi-industrial edge. It’s a lean, taut silhouette, but one that has air
in it. Mouret has been toiling for months – the first draft, featuring
panniers (a sort of hip bustle), were torn up after McQueen did panniers.
His frustration wasn’t helped by the fact that he still had so much to say
after his absence. Showing in Paris (still the grail for most designers),
during couture week (the holiest grail) won’t have done much to calm his
nerves either. He really wants this collection to dress women of all shapes.
“The Galaxy was great if you had curves,” he says, “but not if you had no
breasts. This,” he says with a flourish, “will be good for pear shapes. It’s
meant to sit just here [he gesticulates the outline of a breast], not cling
to it.”
The thing about Mouret is, you believe him. I don’t know if it’s because he’s
a heavily accented, easy-on-the-eye Frenchman and thus implicitly to be
trusted on matters of style, or because he’s so touchy-feely. I do know that
he once sold 20 dresses at around £1,000 a pop in Harrods in just over an
hour. Don’t count on this new collection being any cheaper. “We can’t
compete with the high street on price,” says Mouret. “We can’t compete with
the big luxury names on branding. That’s why we are keeping it small,
showing during couture and delivering to stores from November. All we can do
is appeal to women’s imaginations and bring them something they can’t get
elsewhere.”
He is now under the wing of Simon Fuller, the TV and record producer,
erstwhile manager of the Spice Girls and S Club 7 and creator of the global Pop
Idol TV series. It’s an odd marriage (brokered by Victoria Beckham and
Fuller’s girlfriend, both fans of Mouret), but Fuller clearly knows how to
make money and Mouret knows how to make clothes. Both seem to keep a healthy
distance from one another.
Whatever possessed him to sign away everything to the Meyers? “When you start
out your back is against the wall. You give anything to exist. It’s not just
me; many designers have lost their names.” Mouret’s only card is that in the
end he was happy to walk away with nothing. And not for the first time. He
thinks it’s because he’s got a bit of gypsy in him.
After a short period in the French Army, he left the religious, staid
confines of Lourdes, where he grew up – though not until he was 24 – to
serve a (brief) stint at fashion school in Paris. “The tutor said life
experience was crucial, so I left to get some.” Next he worked as a model
for Jean Paul Gaultier, then as a stylist for French Elle (where he
learnt to cut patterns) and Glamour magazine. He then moved to the
South of France, where he spent a happy period commuting every few weeks to
Paris. “And then Aids, recession, the Gulf War: everything happened. People
in Paris got into a terminal bad mood. I couldn’t keep showing up with this
smile on my face.”
One can imagine that for the butcher’s son leading the good life, leaving
Paris for London might have been a wrench, but no. “I was so French. I
needed to get something else in my blood. In the early 1990s London was on
the edge, with people from everywhere flocking to it. Places like Hoxton
were still really run down. There were big rats in the street at night.” He
sounds nostalgic. “Now the only rats I meet are on two legs.”
Inspired by London’s multiculturalism, he and a friend opened the Freedom Café
on Wardour Street, Central London: a meeting place for people of all
agendas. The artist/designer Leigh Bowery performed his last gig there;
Mouret acted as creative director, a role that seemed to consist of finding
work by up-and-coming photographers and artists to hang there. By all
accounts, it was a blast while it lasted. Then Conran moved in down the
road. Rates soared. Mouret didn’t make a penny, but by then he was ready for
the next reinvention: designing for a mid-market label, People Corporation.
Then, in 1997, with the skimpiest training and no knowledge of how to
construct buttonholes or sleeves, he set up his own label. “I was 36. I knew
that if I didn’t do it, I’d end up a bitter bastard.”
Out came the scissors, and the lengths of silk that he had begun to take on
his styling jobs when he was still at Elle, and at the end of a session a
series of flawless, flowing evening dresses, sinuously draped round the
body, would appear. Private customers began to trek to his Bermondsey studio
in South London. Almost the entire British fashion press and American Vogue
turned up for his first presentation – not that he was willing to sell any
of the collection for two more years.
The rest is history. What I didn’t know is that the pale bone-grey that he has
incorporated in this collection is inspired by the suit that his mother wore
on her wedding day. “She had already had my sister. My father wasn’t her
father. It was a big scandal. She couldn’t marry in white. I think the dress
was pale blue really. But the picture was black and white and for years I
thought it was grey.” RM pieces will be on view, and available to preorder,
from netaporter.com tomorrow, and will be stocked at Brown’s, Harvey
Nichols, Harrods and Selfridges.
Mouret moments
1998 Launches his collection with a 15-outfit presentation. None of it
is for sale. Lands his first magazine cover
September 2000 Persuades his friend Marc Almond to perform cabaret at
his fashion show. Goth seems cool again
September 2003 Moves his show from London to New York. Park Avenue
Princesses and the Downtown set are in heaven Orders double
February 2005 Scarlett Johansson wears Roland Mouret to the Oscars and
gets compared to Marilyn Monroe
September 2005 The Galaxy goes global on Demi, Sienna, Keira and
Cameron, and launches a trillion copies
September 2006 He designs ten (unnamed) dresses for Gap
