London
NCS
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Even when you’re unfamiliar with designer Martine Rose by title, possibilities are you’ve seen her garments at some of essentially the most memorable popular culture moments of the 12 months. From the varsity leather jacket worn by Kendrick Lamar for his viral Super Bowl halftime efficiency, to the navy go well with donned by Timothée Chalamet in a single of his most uncommon pink carpet appearances (the actor arrived on the London premiere of “A Complete Unknown” via e-bike), Rose’s garments have been middle stage in 2025.
Her speedy rise has taken her throughout the globe, however on Saturday evening the British-Jamaican designer made a triumphant return to her hometown London with an off-kilter Spring-Summer 2026 assortment. When it comes to point out venues, Rose — who has attracted a loyal following for her street-inspired menswear — doesn’t decide in your typical picture-postcard depictions of the British capital.
This time, the setting was a Nineteen Fifties-era former job middle in central London, a government-run workplace that previously would have been utilized by the unemployed to seek out work. The identical job middle the place English punk band, The Clash, famously met within the Nineteen Seventies.
Rose’s model shared the area with impartial designers, veteran market merchants and “all kinds of people that contribute to the fabric of London cultural life in loads of different ways,” she advised NCS in a video name from her north London studio forward of the present.
Among the 22 stalls had been safety-pinned creations from designer Jawara Alleyne (Rihanna is a fan), bleached and graphic casualwear by Chalamet’s cap designer of alternative 4FSB, and bomber jackets and T-shirts printed with images by Jamie Morgan of the ’80s London fashion motion “Buffalo”, in addition to indie publications, limited-edition collages and classic furnishings.
For the 44-year-old designer, it served as a love letter to the melting pot of cultures and adversity-born creativity that London is thought for. “I hope people experience this feeling that I always strive to portray, this positive energy, this boost of possibilities,” she added.
From members golf equipment to climbing partitions, cul-de-sacs to group facilities, Rose chooses on a regular basis backdrops through which her off-kilter characters can come to life. For Saturday’s present — which ran regardless of the June version of London Fashion Week being cancelled by the British Fashion Council — Rose introduced appears to be like that twisted, stretched, distorted and shrunken outerwear staples together with puffa jackets, trench coats.
There had been uncommon fashion pairings, equivalent to big-shoulder tailoring with cinched waists mixed with lace-trimmed boxer shorts, knee-high soccer socks, and square-toed loafers. In one other look, a go well with jacket was worn over frayed denim shorts, soccer socks and the most recent version of her Nike footwear collaboration, a hybrid sneaker-mule. For some, the seemingly mismatched items would possibly seem jarring, however the assortment encapsulated the inventive group that Rose is impressed by.
Among the present’s attendees had been native style designers Craig Green and Simone Rocha, American rapper A$AP Nast and British DJ Benji B.
“London is my home,” defined Rose. “I love it and feel that there’s so many stories to tell, from its past and present, and the people within it.”
Since Rose established her eponymous label in London in 2007, it has advanced from a shirt-only capsule assortment to an internationally famend, absolutely fledged model, admired by each business insiders and celebrities. Alongside Lamar and Chalamet, the likes of Drake, Rihanna, Gigi Hadid, Nick Jonas, Hailey Bieber and Dua Lipa are all A-list repeat wearers of her items. But it’s Lamar — the Pulitzer Prize-winning, most awarded artist in BET Hip Hop Awards historical past — with whom she has the closest, and most inventive, of bonds. “Like all good relationships, it started slowly before we realized the energy between us, this creative synergy that means it just works,” Rose defined.
Shortly after sporting customized Martine Rose items, together with her signature Oklahoma leather-based jacket, through the UK leg of his “Big Steppers” tour in 2022, Lamar took to Instagram to declare that it was on his “bucketlist to work with Martine Rose, she room shy but gangsta,” in a since-deleted submit (the musician frequently clears his Instagram feed). He subsequently collected three Grammys for his studio album “Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers,” dressed head-to-toe in Martine Rose, together with sneakers from her Nike Shox MR4 collaboration.
As admiration changed into collaboration, Rose labored on the outfits for Lamar’s efficiency on the Camp Flog Gnaw pageant in 2023 — together with its extremely wanted limited-run merchandise, which included a twisted football-inspired shirt, a prime that includes Lamar’s handwritten lyrics, and even a long-sleeved prime with the phrases “Martine Sardine,” a nod to the rapper’s Martine Rose namecheck rhyme in his collaborative hit with Baby Keem, “The Hillbillies.” But this 12 months’s Super Bowl collaboration, which noticed Lamar put on a customized leather-based Martine Rose varsity jacket that spelled out “Gloria” throughout its entrance earlier than, more than 133 million viewers, took their relationship to new heights.
“When he approached us to work on the Super Bowl, I totally underestimated it,” Rose confessed, earlier than breaking right into a self-deprecating snort. “But for me, it’s rarely about the final destination but the journey,” she added. Rose labored carefully with Lamar to comprehend his imaginative and prescient. “I just love the fact that he (Lamar) gets it,” she defined excitedly. “Approaching an unbelievably important entertainment stage, to not only go out and put on a show for the people, but to use it as an opportunity to do something more impactful, to subvert it into something with a real message was so powerful — it’s a huge privilege to have been a part of it,” she added.
“It meant people that would ordinarily never look at us did, and it makes me smile to think of the people that saw Kendrick Lamar in our jacket (and) went onto our website to be met with models in prosthetic noses (a quirky feature of the brand’s Spring-Summer 2025 show), leaving them totally confused.” It’s clear Rose delights in difficult societal requirements and expectations.
It’s additionally exactly why she liked Chalamet’s electrical Lime bike pink carpet second again in January. Yes, it helped that the actor was sporting a customized Martine Rose go well with (as he has executed for quite a few media junket appearances), however she “loved the sense of humor of this particular moment, a playfulness that dissolved what can so easily be so scripted.” For Rose, it’s a pleasure to decorate anybody, however “it’s even nicer to dress people that bring something else, a sense of character and personality,” she mentioned.
This sense of authenticity is on the coronary heart of a model Rose has constructed over twenty years. Back in 2015, when she was working in bars and squatting in deserted properties to help her model, a shock invitation got here from Balenciaga to seek the advice of on its menswear assortment — which Rose did for 3 years, till 2018. Working carefully alongside the brand’s then-creative director Demna (who solely goes by his first title), Rose launched elevated variations of her signature kinds to the French luxurious home, equivalent to cropped bomber jackets, outsized shoulders, drab tracksuits and go well with jackets. Major collaborations with the likes of Nike, Clark’s and Supreme quickly adopted.
Working as a feminine dressmaker in an business largely led by males, Rose is a rarity. Doing so whereas taking inspiration from her Jamaican-British heritage, rarer nonetheless. With the proportion of feminine inventive administrators in luxurious style falling and under-representation of individuals of coloration in each inventive and management positions, her inventive resilience hasn’t gone unnoticed. Speculation was rife that Rose would possibly change into the brand new males’s designer of Louis Vuitton and later, Balenciaga (roles that finally went to Pharrell Williams and Pierpaolo Piccioli, respectively).
It’s gossip that Rose purposefully distances herself from. “I’m not on social media, so I miss a lot of the noise intentionally,” she confessed. “Occasionally, someone might corner me when I’m out and ask me about a position and, of course, it’s deeply flattering to have your name mentioned.”
For some designers, the dream is to work for a giant luxurious firm whereas working their very own label (see Jonathan Anderson designing for JW Anderson and Loewe, and most recently Dior). But Rose feels in another way. “I’ve never been one to follow a script and I have enjoyed — and continue to enjoy — the freedom of forging my own path, which is harder to do when you’re part of a bigger machine,” she defined.
The moments when Rose feels not sure or questions herself, are additionally the moments when she is aware of she’s “in the right zone.” “I never want to remain in a safe space where I’m just pushing out greatest hits collections with pieces I know work. I want to design garments that make me feel something at least.”
Similarly, she desires the general public to come back away from her exhibits having felt one thing, “whether that’s hate or love, pull or repulsion,” she mentioned. “Ultimately, you either get it or you don’t — and it’s ok if you don’t because we’re not for everyone.”