Martine Rose Fall/Winter 2020 Men’s. London, United Kingdom

Editor's Notes

Showing her Fall/Winter 2020 collection at her daughter’s primary school in North London, Rose enters a new decade, referencing recurring inspirations like London club-culture, everyday communities, and sex. Images from the Martine Rose archive have been incorporated into new prints and worn by personas from previous seasons like SS14's Rick James-inspired man and last season's Kinky Gerlinky clubbers. While the collection reminisced the past, the brand never gets old. It's time Martine Rose is put on the same pedestal as Virgil Abloh and Demna Gvasalia, if not above.

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“Primary schools are magical, with the mini toilets and mini art on the walls. Everyone has been to primary school but often you don’t get the chance to go back, unless you have kids or pick up a friend’s kid,” explains Martine Rose backstage at her 4-year old daughter’s primary school in North London where editors sat next to teachers and young school kids. “The inspiration is always the same. It’s always about out outsiders, people on the periphery. It’s about mushing them together and remixing them in different ways.” Martine on Martine Rose FW 2020

Industry Opinion

“Martine has always been the real deal and just done Martine. She knows herself and her tribe inside out. Everyone in that room last night could feel her in peak flow. She dictates what happens next and we could never be in safer hands.” - Lulu Kennedy, Founder of Fashion East

“Simply put, Martine is one of the best we have and every season her shows become the show. She’s the future, presently.” - Stavros Karelis, founder Machine-A

“Even though the show was all about revisiting the best of her past collections, Martine found a way to take something we think we all know and made us fall in love with it all over again.” - Dino Bonacic, digital editor at 10 Magazine

Highsnobiety's Shopping List

Latex Blazer

Highsnobiety / Eva Al Desnudo

“It’s good to get a bit of sex in, isn’t it?” Rose explains. Next to many familiar fabrics, materials and slogans used for next season’s collection, the designer opted for latex tailoring. Contrast at its most subversive. “You have to have friction because that’s when you get something interesting.”

Croc Cut-Out, Monk Strap

Highsnobiety / Eva Al Desnudo

Rose has been heralded by her loyal fans for years for her unorthodox play on classic footwear staples, making Nike’s Air Monarchs, worn by middle-American dads, appealing to young fashionable men, and making purple croc mules appealing to those outside of the fashion industry. “Guys just love them,” she says. Her latest are a range of penny loafers and over-the-knee cowboy boots with contrast snakeskin toe caps, all made in collaboration with SIX London. A standout being a black, monk strap in faux croc with a cut-out hole in the front, exposing one’s choice of hosiery, or for toe peeping.

Farah Trouser Collaboration

Highsnobiety / Eva Al Desnudo

“I get approached quite a lot to do collaborations but when Farah approached me it was a no-brainer. Their reference points cross-over [with mine],” she says. “Farah was really big in Jamaica in the mid 70s and early 80s and later appropriated by football casuals. I remember my uncle pressing his stay press to a knife point for a pleat in his trousers. My cousins all play football in them because they’re indestructible, which is why you can wear them to school without them getting wrecked.” Watch out for a bigger collaboration with the brand on knit scarves, football polos and wide legged trousers early summer.

Long-Sleeve Graphic Shirt

Highsnobiety / Eva Al Desnudo

While graphics tees, hoodies and shirting might be entry-level items for the masses, Rose’s will never be mundane in the traditional sense. Instead, opting for something more personal. Classic Martine Rose tag-lines like “Protect the Cuckoo’s Nest”. Others, scribbled in place names close to Rose: Tottenham, Croydon and Clapham Junction. “It’s London. Everywhere I have a connection to and where I’ve either lived or worked.”

Lurex ‘Expect Perfection’ Pullover

Highsnobiety / Eva Al Desnudo

A riff on Durex’ logo, ‘Expect perfection’ runs throughout the collection, the standout being a glitter lurex pullover with rug-inspired print on its background. The print also appeared on stretch mesh, pilled fleece, viscose shirting. Here paired with jacquard denim (a big push for the brand), whiskered and stonewashed to look like a worn-out rug.

“It’s one of the remixes that I’ve been using from the very beginning. People tell me all the time ‘I wish you did that t-shirt in this and that, so I decided I’m going to give it to them. Give the people what they want,” says Rose.