Alejandra Alonso Rojas (Q2579)
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Alejandra Alonso Rojas is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Alejandra Alonso Rojas |
Alejandra Alonso Rojas is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
When designer Alejandra Alonso Rojas was researching venues for her New York Fashion Week spring show, she toured the New-York Historical Society on the Upper West Side—and was instantly drawn to the giant Picasso painting inside it, titledLe Tricorne. “It’s inspired by Andalusia, which so happens to be the theme of my whole collection,” said Rojas. It was a sign: The designer ended up showing in the grand building today, with the Picasso serving as the backdrop of her new runway assortment, all dedicated to highlighting Spanish culture and craftsmanship.While Rojas’s signature dresses always pay homage to her native country in some way, the new spring offering zeroed in on the unique color palette of Andalusia, including lemon yellows, dusty blues, and rosé pinks. She also felt drawn to the more soft, fluid silhouettes that many women wear in the region: “the construction of their dresses, and how fluidly they move.” You could certainly see that in one of her opening dresses, a bright-yellow chiffon number with big flowers along the left shoulder. “All our our flowers were handmade in the garment district,” said Rojas. There was also a sense of ease and movement in her silky champagne-colored suit, paired with bra tops and espadrilles that were crocheted and hand-painted in Menorca.Given that the line was a love letter to Andalusia, Rojas also wanted to capture the unique handwork artisans do in the region. “It’s an area of Spain that has a lot of craftsmanship, especially with laces and embroideries,” said Rojas. “Over the summer I met these women from Galicia, and they do one of the oldest lace [styles] in the world, called Camariñas.” Their lacework—which is done by hand, using bobbins and pins—was applied as front panels onto Rojas’s silky shift dresses, an elegant fusion of the old with the modern. Broderie anglaise, a needlework technique, was also applied as trim on her fitted corset tops.The national flower of Spain, red carnations, appeared as prints on the designer’s ruffled white skirts and halter-style minidresses. The graphic print was achieved by stamping flowers with acrylic paint onto her fabrics, then printing it. In a sea of different inspirations and references during Fashion Week, Rojas’s commitment to highlighting her own roots remains a sweet constant.
11 September 2024
At a resort appointment, Alejandra Alonso Rojas admitted she was feeling homesick for Madrid—the city in which she was born, and where much of her family still resides. To counter that feeling of longing, she created a resort collection paying homage to the Spanish capital. “I really had Madrid in my head, and the first thing that came to mind was the blue sky,” she said. “It’s a very particular blue. That’s how I started building out the whole collection.”To help shape her palette, Rojas looked at some of her favorite paintings at Madrid’s Prado Museum (including “Las Meninas” by Diego Velázquez) and referenced the bright pink outfits worn by bullfighters. She translated the bright hues into some of her effortless silhouettes—the highlight being a breezy dress that floats off the body with ease. A sky-blue style, with a ruched off-the-shoulder neckline, felt silky to the touch; you’d never guess it was jersey.Standout silk long- and short-sleeve dresses were tie-dyed using a special shibori technique. “You fold the silk over a pipe, wrap it with a cord, then dump it into the dye,” said Rojas. For a classic black V-neck dress she created a subtle watercolor print of Botero sculptures, which Madrid visitors can see upon arrival at the airport. “It says Madrid, but in a very subtle way,” she explained. The print gave just enough visual interest to the otherwise-timeless piece.There was a sense of ease even in Rojas’s more difficult cuts, including the leather maxi dress with crochet paneling on the skirt. For the first time, she also created breezy caftans. Her inspiration? Stylish Madrid locals, naturally. “I was thinking about all of the really chic and sophisticated women in Spain,” said Rojas. “There’s always a natural elegance.”
5 June 2024
On the last day of New York Fashion Week, designer Alejandra Alonso Rojas wanted to relieve some of the fashion chaos with a collection that was both peaceful and calming. “The whole concept behind it was grounding,” Rojas says. “I’ve been meditating a lot and enjoying the feeling of quietness.” That being said, Rojas didn’t want to put her showgoers to sleep: She also infused her fall line with sprightly accents like strong colors and whimsical prints, inspired by her love of the energy in the city. “I cannot live without it,” she said. “I really wanted to represent that in the collection too.”Known best for dresses and knitwear, Rojas put new spins on both wardrobe staples this season. Long-sleeve silk gowns were designed in pastel tie-dyes; the silky slip dresses had splashes of tulle as well as an allover earthy tree print. “It’s almost like [what you see] when you’re laying down, and you see all of the leaves moving,” Rojas said. Continuing with this idea of a centering in nature, Rojas also created several pieces in leafy prints—be it a sequined suit, or a ruched dress with a high slit. “I picked up leaves from my house, and we hammered them in silk to create these beautiful leaf prints,” she said.But it was Rojas’s experimentations with tailoring and outerwear that proved a real standout; The categories are something she’s sparsely explored in the past few seasons. Her herringbone suits and jackets featured subtle gold threading in them, and the insides were lined with silk in the same leaf prints as her dresses. The details were just special enough to give them some individuality. She also had sleek leather trenches and shaggy shearling coats in the mix. “It’s one of the collections with the most fabrications that I’ve ever done,” Rojas said.The designer envisions her customer breaking up all these pieces and incorporating them in a more casual, nonchalant way. One of her main references for the styling was Carrie Bradshaw, wearing a big fur coat and silky dress: Rojas envisions her women mix-and-matching her new fall staples in that signature Carrie way. “I’ve been watching the whole ofSex and the City,” Rojas said. “That was the vibe: You’re dressed up, but you don’t need to be perfectly put together. Embrace your natural beauty and take on the world.”
14 February 2024
The sound of rolling waves opened the spring collection of Alejandra Alonso Rojas: The designer, who is from Spain, looked to the French Riviera and Menorca for inspiration this season. “I spend every summer there,” said Rojas. “It really brings me peace, and I’m always inspired by the landscapes.” The designer fell in love with the style of Menorca natives, and she wanted to put her stamp on vacation-ready pieces in a way that felt both elevated and unexpected. To do so, she zeroed in on two specific eras—beachwear from the ’30s, and minimalism from the ’90s—to create a melange of clothes that felt retro, yet current. (The bookLiving Well Is the Best Revengeby Calvin Tomkins also ignited her obsession with the idea of traveling to the past; it’s set in 1920s France.)You could see these distinct references as clear as the Mediterranean Sea in some of the looks. A white crocheted tank dress featured a drop-waist fringed hemline (more ’20s flapper girl than ’30s), and it felt beachy yet sleek. The same goes for the cotton-linen suit vest and wide-leg trousers. The silky red dress with a sarong-style waist, and the silky shirt and shorts in a blue ombré treatment, both drew from the colors of those famous Menorca sunsets. “I named the blues after beaches there,” said Rojas. Instead of her usual assortment of signaturesilk dresses for evening, the designer said she gravitated towards more casual daywear this time around. “It’s about the freedom of summer, and being comfortable and sexy at the same time,” she said. But there was also something easy and polished about her dressier frocks, too, like the opening squared-neck LBD with thin straps.Given that a signature element of Rojas’s work is her dip-dyed silks, she had to deliver some printed dresses as well—and they, too, had an elevated twist for spring. The designer grew up loving the work of Menorca painter David Monrós, and she decided to channel his approach to painting into her own creative process. “He painted with fish, so I painted with real fish then pressed them onto silks in this collection,” she said. The result was slinky one-shouldered dresses or floor-length tank dresses covered in abstract octopus, fish, and squid prints. Another new territory for Rojas this season was embellishments; The designer played with embroidering shells, beads, and pearls onto her looks in subtle ways. A sweet little strapless blue mini dress, ruched along the bust, had a top hemline encrusted in little shells.
“It’s kind of like finding treasures on the beach,” she said. The concept of vacation wear may not be groundbreaking for spring, but Rojas made successful attempts to infuse some newness into it.
11 September 2023
Alejandra Alonso Rojas poured her love of the sun and beach into her resort collection, tacking images of shells, seaside family photos, and ’90s supermodels in swimsuits to her mood board. There they shared space with snaps of Salvador Dalí and Surrealist art—which explains the melting clock and lip-shaped sofa in the look book. The draped set was also a nod to the interiors of Dalí’s home in Cadaqués, Spain, which Rojas has visited. “I was going back to all of these memories of our trip,” said the designer. “I started exploring the different shapes in Dalí’s artwork, all of the colors…. I felt like it was a world of endless possibilities.”While the Surrealists probed the subconscious and surfaced it in their art, Rojas instead dove into the sea, rising to the surface with underwater treasures and mythical creatures. A spray of coral-like fabric festoons the strap of a reef-like crochet dress, and a red bias-cut number has a delicate coral bead detail. Handmade marble prints capture the textures of the sea, and an iridescent laminated denim (a welcome option for day) its shimmer. Likewise, allover silver sequins on a made-for-holidays pantsuit recall the scales of fish. The inclusion of on-trend mermaid dresses was not forced but rather extended the overall aquatic theme of the offering. The silhouette also plays into the sinuous dresses the designer is known for.AAR staples like crochet-and-leather combinations reappear here, but most compelling was the way the designer translated her best-selling drawstring slip dress from satin into a cashmere. It’s a piece that can be self-styled (ruched or not) and dressed up or down. The ease of it seemed to capture the mood emanating from the images of Dalí on the beach that she pinned to her board and made me wonder what an AAR collection inspired by the Surrealist’s casual personal style, rather than his art, might look like.
13 June 2023
In a season when many designers are focused on groundedness, Alejandra Alonso Rojas moved in the opposite direction, looking to the sky, specifically the Northern Lights, for inspiration. Rojas has always been drawn to “dopamine” colors, but after several seasons’ surfeit of blinding brights like Pink PP, it was the pastels in this collection—a lilac coat, a blush slip dress worn with a luxurious cashmere sweater in a matching hue—that most drew the eye.The celestial inspiration was evident in the first looks, that were night-sky black or metallic. “We really wanted a flash of evening crochet on the runway” said the designer. Gilding the lily, a gold knotted dress had diamante detailing at the back. The drama of a carnation red column was also in the pleated bows not visible from the front.The show was presented at Casino restaurant on the Lower East Side and the set up was charming, but it was difficult to imagine many of the pieces being worn to a dinner there: they were too dressy, too much, in many cases. AAR’s roots are in knitwear and leathers. Evening wear is a relatively new category, and according to the designer, a booming one. The choice to create satin slips to compliment see-through crochet was nice, but as lovely as an ice-dye or dramatic as a parachute train are, there were many iterations on silhouettes and techniques we’ve seen here before. It’s great to have signatures you stick to, but it’s trickier when the pieces aren’t necessarily wardrobe staples. On top of that, crochet and macramé are to be found in many collections these days. Admirably, Rojas remains committed to slow fashion; there was a lot of hand work in her pieces.Backstage, the designer spoke of the layers of energy and emotions around all of us, and the relationships we have with each other. For many seasons the mining of her family history was her primary inspiration. That remained here, but not as overtly. It turned out that the stripes on a silken skirt with a crochet insert referenced those on the designer’s parents’ bedspread that she remembered from childhood. “It’s something really meaningful for me,” said Rojas. That look felt authentic and close to home in a way that the dressier pieces did not.
12 February 2023
Alejandra Alonso Rojas, by way of her young son, has been paying particular attention to space, planets, and constellations. While she was designing this pre-fall 2023 collection, the first images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope were released. She was particulary taken with Webb’s breathtaking visual of the star-forming region known as the Carina Nebula. Its navy blue background with ochre, orange, and brownish hues in the foreground influenced Rojas’s color palette and textile treatments.This season, Rojas decided to expand on her eveningwear offering, based on market demand. Her signature silky slips and crochet silhouettes feel familiar and lived-in, with a tactile quality. Take look 6, a slip with a diagonal crochet panel inset at the right-side waist. The panel resembles a doily, “kind of like the lace tableware in Spain I grew up with,” she said. Continuing that homey narrative, Rojas widened the scope of her hand-dyeing story from dip-dyes (still present in some of her evening wear) to ice-dyeing. “The kitchen was a mess after, but they look so cool, like the layered explosions of color you’d see in the Aurora Borealis,” she said, adding that this is something she’ll carry into fall. The cashmere sweater in look 11 is a preview of what’s to come.Tactility is a Rojas strongsuit. She’s building a cashmere program, which feels timely considering how trendy the yarn has become—Gigi Hadid and Brad Pitt have both recently launched cashmere labels. More compelling, however, was the addition of a limited-run of Japanese denim in a dark navy shade. The roughness of the denim—used in a few details spread throughout the lineup, as well as for a pair of jeans and a striking puffer jacket—added a layer of interest to the sweetness of Rojas’s clothes. On the larger pieces embroidered with zodiac constellations in Swarovski crystals, there was a welcome tension between the toughness of their canvas and the naivete of her motifs. This is a space Rojas could explore further; when she experiments with imperfection her pieces acquire more nuance.
12 January 2023
Alejandra Alonso Rojas hosted her spring 2023 runway show at Verōnika, the upscale restaurant at the Fotografiska Museum on Park Avenue South. From the choice of venue to the chilled champagne and crisp cudités, the experience was all about the intimacy and elegance Rojas has continued to build over the years.Rojas collaborated with artist Philippine de Richemont for the season. The opening look, a beautifully made corset featuring one of the artist’s prints paired with a rainbow fringe crocheted skirt, set the color palette and mood for the collection: Romantic, joyful, and uplifting. “I was thinking about the collection as a blank canvas,” Rojas said after the show, “she’s in movement, her body, her beautiful curves, so with Philippine we created this almost camouflage print of women moving and dancing.” Rojas was also inspired by ’90s models and portraits of them by the likes of Richard Avedon. In this context, her slip dresses and other silky sheaths felt even more special.One thing that Rojas excels at is consistency. Silks and knits are her chosen medium, and season after season she explores different avenues to make them feel fresh. This time around, ombré dyes, prints, and crystals lifted her silhouettes and provided novelty within familiarity. But when she went to less explored territory, like an asymmetrical fringe cable knit sweater or a delicious dress with voluminous flair created by paneling on the abdomen, the collection found more grounding and fullness. Her knits remain one of her strongest suits—a navy blue crystal-embellished crocheted slip was particularly striking, and where she combined her silks and knits in the same place she found new ground to explore in the future. Novelty also came in the shape of silk trousers with side pockets, almost resembling cargos or jeans, which she said were informed by her desire to continue to give her multifaceted woman pieces to complete her wardrobe.There’s opportunity here for Rojas to remain consistent while continuing to find places where her language translates; she certainly has the hand to do so.
12 September 2022
Many things old are new again in fashion, and not just in terms of inspirations. The made-to-order business model is getting a rethink, for example, and so is the salon-style presentation. Alejandra Alonso Rojas invited guests to tea at Cipriani House, and models walked slowly among the round tables as a pianist played. This was a more literal expression of slow fashion than Rojas usually employs.Hand-knits are the core of her business, and from the start the designer has been working with a group of Ukrainian knitters in the States to execute her luxurious designs. Rojas dedicated her show to them, and only proceeded with the event with their blessing.Against a backdrop of dark wood and patterned carpet, the presentation opened with a Halstonesque knit dress in mauve that was cut low in the back and with a thread-thin metal chain zig-zagging up the side. In the 1970s many designers were in thrall to the 1930s, and there was a feeling of that decade in the tailored pajama looks and slender silhouettes here. A hand-drawn zebra print conjured El Morocco, a swanky club of the ’30s. The deco feeling was heightened by the surroundings; Rojas, who has mastered the art of the slip dress, said that her mood board actually featured lots of spare 1990s looks.Because of their tactility and colors—this season in a citrusy sorbet palette—Rojas’s pieces never read as minimal in the sense of cool or neutral. This also has to do with her typical focus on ease. The predominance of evening looks for fall is based on customers’ requests for dressy pieces that are also non-constricting. Some of the after-dark looks had both vacation and red-carpet vibes; Rojas is still finding her way here.The newest developments were the chain details and the use of fine gauge knits. A semi-transparent red dress that fit like a body stocking was of a different stripe than the brand’s more dense, and often fringed, knits and crochets.
17 March 2022
The calm serenity of the beach in late summer inspired a dynamic collection from Alejandra Alonso Rojas. Carried over from spring were bias-dyed slip dresses in sunset hues, while the customizable drawstring of that season’s dramatic parachute gown was transferred to a colorful cocktail dress. “This energy just got into me, and I really needed a creative escape,” said Rojas.The news here is the evening looks, like a hand-draped stretch silk dress that “holds you like a bathing suit on top” and releases into a floaty skirt. For land-locked—and body-confident—mermaids there is a hand-crocheted dégradé gown. From a feather-like silk fabric Rojas had in her nest of a studio came a flirty shorts suit and a look-at-me-after-dark dress. A smocked, off-the-shoulder cocktail number combined comfort and chic, a welcome combination for dress-up occasions.
17 December 2021
Pace is a concept that gets overlooked in fashion. Somewhere along the way, change became synonymous with speed, to the detriment of the industry and the environment. Maybe if fewer products were made, more creativity and care could be put into them. Change needn’t be fast, and it never has been at Alejandra Alonso Rojas, where consistency is valued.Each season the designer iterates or builds on what has come before and what customers have reacted positively to. And Rojas’s well of inspiration is always the same; her own family albums and history. In the spotlight for spring is a great-great-aunt África Llamas, who in 1931, during the Second Spanish Republic, became one of the country’s first female pilots. “I just wanted to take a little adventure on her plane,” says Rojas of her thought process.The collection contains a dramatic ombre parachute dress, and leather aviator caps were made and used for styling, but Rojas otherwise abstracted her theme. The main story here are the feel-good primary colors. Some of these were hand-dyed using the Shibori technique (stones are wrapped with string into the fabric; the result is a kind of halo). A red and blue slip dress, as cool looking as a Firecracker popsicle, was tie-dyed on the bias.Knits and crochets are Rojas’s specialties, and she’s creative in finding inventive ways to play with them. For spring there’s a one-sleeve cable-knit sweater with a long “hem” of fringe, and a touch-me camel hair boucle fabric that’s soft and stretchy. The light-as-air crochets feel especially of the season and of the moment. The summer of 2021 has been about bra-tops and skin. These deliver both and leave one looking forward to the summer to come.
8 September 2021
All of Alejandra Alonso Rojas’s work celebrates her Spanish heritage in some way. As she was creating this collection in New York, the designer was longing for her home country (the pandemic makes traveling there complicated), and included elements of what she calls “Spanish nostalgia” into the line-up through her vibrant palette, use of fringe, and, for the first time, polka-dots.Coming from Spain, she said on a call, polka-dots were ubiquitous, but she shied away from using them before, in part for fear of making a too-literal reference to Flamenco dancers. “Even though I’m so inspired by those beautiful ruffles and beautiful silhouettes, and they’re so feminine, I wanted to use something more modern,” she said. To do so she created her own dotted print using watercolors and avoided ruffles.Though labeled fall, this upbeat collection reads like spring. While Rojas isn’t explicitly working on the see-now, buy-now model, she wants her designs to correspond more closely to the time in which they are delivered to stores, in this case during June and July. The designer sat out a season last year to reconsider her business plan. Deliveries is an area in which Rojas is trying to be more mindful about her impact, another is sustainability. To avoid unnecessary production, this season Rojas produced only the pieces that are shown in the look book, meaning there are no “commercial” pieces or runs in every fabrication back in the studio, though buyers will still be able to customize their orders.Rojas applied a responsible approach to her designs as well. Of particular note are pieces made using a new technique in which leftover fabric is cut into bias strips and hand-crocheted into sweaters and dresses that release into fringe at the hem.Hand knits are a pillar of the brand, and Rojas revisited a shawl top, reimagining it as a one-shouldered dress, and worked it using a garter stitch so the material wouldn’t have a distinct front and back. For fall there are also sweaters with horizontal cables, and a crochet with dimensional dots. Further building on the polka-dot theme, Rojas developed circular patterns that were used to make pieces like slim pants and a bolero that drape softly when worn.Rojas likes a bit of drama in the form of a long sleeve or floor-trailing fringe, but she resisted such impulses for fall, keeping practicality in mind when reworking popular dress patterns to make them shorter and more viable as day-to-night options that retain their chic.
“If I can add some elements that make your life easier, why not?” the designer mused.Inspired by photos of her stylishabuelain pants and a suit, Rojas’s stated intention was to play the feminine off the masculine this season, using tailoring to signal the latter, and shoulder pads to convey strength. Yet the soft pieces, clever knits and draped dresses—like a pink slip that Rojas took from her own closet and remade for the collection, and a caramel and white dot “Pretty Woman” frock—held the most power.
1 March 2021
Alejandra Alonso Rojas made her runway debut for fall 2020. It seemed a logical step since she was a CFDA/VogueFashion Fund finalist last year. The catwalk, understandably, has a magic allure for a designer—there’s nothing like seeing clothes on a body in motion—but it’s not the right format for everyone or for every collection, as was evident today. It’s not that Rojas’s show wasn’t successful; it was, especially at demonstrating what a beautiful colorist she is, but it lacked the sense of hands-on warmth the designer brings to garments shown in hues that look good enough to eat and textures that invite touch.When Rojas launched her line, knits, suedes, shearlings, and leathers were her calling card. More recently natural dyeing has become another brand signature. For fall she hand-rolled lengths of silk with rose, eucalyptus, and hibiscus leaves, then steamed and froze them. The result? Lovely one-of-a-kind lengths of “petal embedded” yardage. There’s no denying the absolute prettiness of the liquid slip dresses Rojas made from the fabric, but what would have impressed in a presentation became repetitive on the runway. And this is mainly because this was a fabric and color story, rather than an exploration of shape or silhouette.Many of the designer’s coveted hand-knits were spotted in the front row; standouts on the catwalk included a multicolored patchwork sweater and a solid one with knitted ribbon streamers. Rojas also successfully translated one of her main inspirations, a 1960s photograph of her aunt wrapped in a scarf, into the collection’s hero(ine) look (26): a fantastically fluid floral slip dress topped with a dramatic hand-knit, one-armed fringed evening wrap. The effect was superchic, superpersonal, a bit cozy—in other words, quintessential AAR.
12 February 2020
Alejandra Alonso Rojas is by no means an under-the-radar designer. Instagram reveals that there exists a close-knit circle of Rojas-ites, and her clever hand-knits have been knocked off by fast-fashion chains. Still, this can only be described as a blockbuster year for the designer. A brief chronology of how her stars aligned goes something like this: Beyoncé called and wanted to buy a suit. Rojas gave birth to her first child, the adorable Alonso. She was named a CFDA/Voguefinalist. And Kim Kardashian West wore Rojas’s pomegranate red silk gown in the May 2019 issue ofVogue. Wow.Rojas might now be described as a girl on fire, but the designer and her work have always had a relatable warmth. It’s one that lends itself to intimate settings. For Spring, Rojas presented her collection amid the bohemian splendor of Aurora Lopez Mejia’s studio. The designer’s cloud white sweater with pearls woven into the twisted collar was quite at home among the artist/jeweler’s treasures and baubles.Rojas evolves, rather than abandons, past designs; new for Spring were shawl and draped details on her favored suit and dress silhouettes. The palette was sun-bleached and beachy. The main wellspring of Rojas’s inspiration is her own family; she cast her net a bit further this season, traveling through her native Spain to visit Salvador Dalí’s house, following the trail of artist’s muses, like Gala Dalí and Françoise Gilot, who made appearances on her inspiration board. Ultimately, this show didn’t have or need a narrative. “I’m really just celebrating women, our beautiful bodies, minds and souls, and how strong we are,” Rojas said. “Turning into a mom really made me realize that.”A hand-drawn print of abstracted female forms was the most direct communication of her theme, but it was also there in the subtle ombre of natural dyes, the whisper-softness of suede, the cozy warmth of a hand-knit, the peekaboo allure of a crochet dress, the crispness of a white cotton bell sleeve. All expressed the “casual luxury” Rojas aims for.The looks were shown on mannequins arranged in lifelike poses: One lolled on a Rococo daybed; another had her arms thrown out with joy, a scarf dripping from her fingers. The designer herself wore a sleeveless, color-block suede dress from the new collection, which reinforced how personal Rojas’s work is. It was also a reminder that only flesh-and-blood women—like the ones the designer was inspired by—can bring clothes to life.
10 September 2019
One of the ways that Alejandra Alonso Rojas’s line is women-friendly is that it isn’t driven by trends.Disposableis not an adjective that can be applied to this designer’s work, both in terms of its make—knits are done by hand, prints and dyeing are done in-house—and the stuff it’s made of—butter-soft suedes, upcycled cashmere, supple leathers, silks, and satins. Her two-for-one reversible shearlings certainly count as investment pieces. And if you like the cut of a suit, the snugness of a bustier, or the bias drape of a skirt, you don’t have to worry that you’ll never see them again; even as Rojas develops new silhouettes, she evolves existing ones. This season, she’s rethought a best seller by cropping it from floor length to ankle length, for example.Still, there’s never a lack of newness in Rojas’s collections. “I feel I like them better every season,” she says. “They keep getting smaller but more cohesive, so I’m loving that.” The main draw for Fall 2019 is a stunning palette that’s richer and deeper than any the designer has worked with previously. There are greens that range from emerald to malachite, raspberries, reds, an irresistible burnt orange, some of which were pulled from the paintings of Tamara de Lempicka and Maruja Mallo. Rojas was unafraid to mix these, a navy-and-red suede midi was notable. Tempering these warm tones were a series of ice blue pieces. Touches of camel were representative of the equestrian theme that ran through the collection; its most obvious expression was a hand-drawn print of running horses (Rojas’s spirit animal).Rojas wanted to capture something of the unbridled freedom of a galloping steed in her Fall collection.Easewas a catchword: As she was designing evening options, like dégradé slip dresses with ’30s flair and a new bias-cut stunner with high neck and darts, she was thinking of the sort of undone glamour of a woman, sunk deep into a chair after returning home from a party. Ease is a relative concept, however. Wherever she may reside, Rojas’s woman has a rather polished, uptown sensibility, which is one of the reasons the clothes work so well in the urbane and cultured environs of Galerie Michael Bargo (its walls hung with kinetic sculptures by Luke Todd), where the lookbook images were shot.
22 February 2019
Things are popping for Alejandra Alonso Rojas professionally and personally. The designer, who decided to drop Spring in favor of showing three times a year so she could better focus on her strengths (read: knits, leathers, and handwork), shot her first Pre-Fall collection in the pop-up stop she opened a few weeks ago on White Street. The store has been such a success that she’s extended the lease. As if that weren’t enough to cheer about, below the designer’s flowing Botticelli curls sits a beautiful baby bump.Rojas is a designer who remains faithful to her core silhouettes, evolving them to suit the season. Lightness—and layerability—were her aims for this collection, one that had a fresh languor. There were many riffs on bias-cut slip dressing, and variations on side-draped skirts, which were offered in trailing maxi lengths. Similarly, touch-the-ground pants extended to high waists. These might be paired with crochet-and-knit midriff sweaters, or combined with a bra top and a structured single-breasted blazer, worn open for a “power” look. Adding texture to the lineup was a Mariano Fortuny–inspired plissé that Rojas plans to add to her arsenal long-term. “I think the micro pleating that is very stretchy was a little bit inspired by my pregnancy,” she said.Color is central to this designer’s process, and she’s known for developing her own tints and fabrics. The atelier, says Rojas, became a veritable lab for Pre-Fall as she and the team employed turmeric, blackberries, indigo, red cabbage, and flowers to create hand-treated textiles, like lengths of ombre-yellows and a whispery petal print. The palette was inspired by the landscapes of Joaquín Sorolla and the Rose and Blue periods of Pablo Picasso. Pinned to Rojas’s mood board, next to photos of her mother andabuela, was Picasso’sMaternité, depicting a nursing mother. (This was even before Rojas knew she was expecting.) For this designer, circularity is everything; each collection starts and ends with her family and her Spanish roots.
4 December 2018
“I really put myself into this collection,” said Alejandra Alonso Rojas at her Resort debut. It was her biggest offering to date, and it showed the designer in top form. As always, these clothes were inspired by her native country; in this case her focus was on Andalucía, where the sun always shines and where jasmine, bluebells, and vibrant bougainvillea bloom brightly. The land and its flowers were reflected in the collection’s seven hand-painted prints and its palette of reds, plums, and teals, balanced with creamy, soft pastels.Having decided to skip the Spring season in favor of Resort, which is longest on the selling floor, Rojas put a lot of focus on varying weights that could accommodate regional differences, striking a balance between lightness and materiality. An ethereal macramé and tulle Degas dress mingled with a blush-colored reversible shearling robe coat and chunky knits. Rojas consistently includes “keepers” in her collections, special handcrafted pieces made of fine materials that are trend-resistant without being boring or basic (see: an asymmetrical, patchworked hand-knit sweater dress in shades of gray). The designer is also increasingly embracing sustainability. Here, she introduced a 100 percent cashmere made of recycled fibers she developed with an Italian mill. “I want to keep pushing every category each season. Once I’ve nailed one it’s like, ‘OK, what crazy idea can we have now?’ ” says Rojas. Defined by its femininity and focused on detail, from custom colors to crest-stamped buttons, Rojas’s work is, above all, personal.
1 June 2018
“I’ve re-created the atelier here,” said Alejandra Alonso Rojas, drawing attention to the far corner of the white Lower East Side gallery space in which she presented, where three white-robed assistants were busy constructing garments. Handwork is one of the unique selling points of this feminine and personal line, run by the designer and her husband, Alejandro Sanz, and business is expanding steadily, especially among specialty boutiques.Strides are being made design-wise as well. For Fall, Alonso Rojas delivered newness not only by introducing novel materials and techniques, but by rejiggering signature pieces. Doing so creates a through line of continuity for her loyal customers. Cabled hand-knits were back, as was denim, this season as a pair of kicky culottes (which the customer can have monogrammed). The season’s custom print was inspired by Alonso Rojas’s memory of her grandmother’s wallpaper—family is the well from which the designer draws her inspiration. The gray, ethically sourced Saga fur pieces were fresh, in particular a robe coat with abbreviated sleeves to accommodate the designer’s signature chunky knits, as well as another sporty sweatshirt style. Alonso Rojas remade a heathered cotton hoodie in her own style with a draped and crisscross overlay, which she paired with a floaty, tiered print dress.Like many designers, Alonso Rojas is grappling with the disconnect between seasonality and delivery dates. “The Fall collection delivers in July, meaning that it’s summer when people are going to buy it,” she said. Instead of adopting a see-now, buy-now model, she took a more seasonless approach, focusing on layering, offering ethereal, feather-light dresses alongside furs and knits. This season, Alonso Rojas also addressed another hot topic—sustainability. The designer is known for her use of leather; having saved custom-dyed scraps from previous seasons, she found a furrier who could stitch the narrow strips together to create a buttery, flat, striped “fabric” without bulky seams on the back. It’s small but important acts like that which will forge change in the industry, and maybe the world. Brava, Alejandra.
8 February 2018
Not all designers showing at New York Fashion Week are out to make a seasonal splash; such is the case with Alejandra Alonso Rojas, a designer with the courage of her convictions. “What I really want to do are timeless [pieces],” she says at a preview of her new line. “[Other] people are talking about trends; I’m doing my thing.” If that means returning to and refining a silhouette that customers responded to, so be it. Rojas has clearly defined the pillars of her brand: leather, handwork, and tailoring. A point of difference is that the designer, a fanatic about details, spends a lot of time developing fabrics (even lining materials) and colors. Spring’s lace, for example, was created at one of France’s oldest mills.Rojas finds endless inspiration in her family’s albums, making her narratives (and her clothes) very personal, though it’s not necessary to know the backstories to appreciate her designs. There is one, however, behind Rojas’s new-for-Spring prints. The collection’s joyful florals, offered in three colorways, are developed from a watercolor painting made by the designer’s mother. This has been worked up into crepe-back satin suits and used for romantic bow-tied dresses with V-backs perfect for summer weddings. There are hand-crocheted dresses that fit the body like soft gloves, and leather is combined with crochet or lace to lighten it for warm-weather wear.Rojas developed a hand-technique that can’t be replicated by machine for a series of summery smocked separates and resurrected a 1920s hand-embroidery technique for fringedmatonescarves that celebrate the designer’s Latin heritage. A shawl-inspired slip dress is named Virginia (afterVogue’s Market Director who, Rojas says, suggested the hybrid). Without looking dated, many of the pieces Rojas is showing for Spring are the sorts of things that would be a dream to find in a vintage shop, like a sleeveless fuchsia dress in suede with a whiff of seventies groove about it, a floral kimono with contrast lining, or a crochet jacket that has a grandma's-attic-meets-boho appeal. Rojas might love crochet and leather, but she’s no hippie; instead, her designs are ladylike.Still, like the rest of us, Rojas appreciates that casual clothes are a part of every woman’s wardrobe—her running-around-town uniform is Levi’s paired with her own designs—and denim makes its debut in her line this season. On offer are a yoked skirt, culottes, and a coat. She’s showing denim on its own or combined with leather.
If the latter felt heavy-handed, the plain styles stand out as they don’t replicate what’s already on the market. Moreover, the culottes can be hand-embroidered with the buyer’s initials. With Rojas, everything is personal.
10 September 2017
Alejandra Alonso Rojas is riding the crest of a wave: She picked up the Fashion Group International’s Rising Star Award last month, and today she presented a winning sophomore collection in a cozy West Village townhouse, chosen specifically to evoke a sense of home.It was just the right setting for this namesake collection, whose “common thread,” explains the designer, is her family heritage. Having shuttered her first solo effort last year, an “experimental” line called À Moi, the Madrid-born Rojas approached her new line, cofounded and led by husband and CFO Alejandro Sanz, afresh. “I decided it doesn’t have to be a trend every season,” the designer said, adding that she’ll continue to explore “memories of the women of my family” as the line evolves. Rojas is so committed to this approach that she has already defined her signatures: leather, hand-knits, and custom prints. This season Rojas digitized a watercolor she painted of her dog’s coat. The palette, mainly burgundy and loden, was inspired by her grandparents’ Spanish home and garden. A framed vintage photo of her mother (in attendance and busy crocheting) dressed in a wine-colored look rested on a mantle. Pleasingly autumnal, and a welcome break from all-black, these colors worked better as solids than when mixed. It’s hard to imagine anyone but a model being able to pull off a midi-length corset-laced skirt with mauve top and sage bottom. A moss colored straight skirt with a center-front slit, on the other hand, looked like a solid investment.Rojas is a fanatic about textiles. She developed and dyed her materials with Italian mills. Part of the appeal of her collection is its tactile quality, and the contrasting textures like buttery suedes, hair-on calf, and chunky knits. There’s a sense of hand in this line as well as softness. Tailoring is part of the line too, evidenced by some smart fur-trimmed coats. And, for a big evening, there was a navy mermaid dress made of 895 hand-crocheted squares, trimmed in black velvet ribbon. A crocheted robe jacket in blush and white could work as a cover-up or in an office.Rojas delivers polish with warmth. Her designs are women-friendly; her pieces are keepers, made by a designer who seems comfortably and happily at home in her talent.
11 February 2017