Rodarte (Q7579)
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American fashion company
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Rodarte |
American fashion company |
Statements
2005
founder
There’s a heat wave sweeping Los Angeles right now, but that was not the inspiration for Rodarte’s spring collection—despite the presence of a big, bold sun in their lookbook images. “It’s an ode to California golden hour,” said Laura Mulleavy on a phone call. “Yes, it was all pretty organic; all the wildlife and the desert blooms. Things that really tend to have a huge influence on us texturally,” added Kate Mulleavy.Lace played a starring role in the collection; not only because the fabric made up many of the looks, but because it was the lace itself that guided their final silhouettes. “Usually we get fabrics and we spend so much time thinking about how to mold them into what we want to do,” said Kate. “A lot of the time it’s almost like trying to defy gravity, because you really want to use a fabric in a certain way and it pushes you into the outer limits in terms of what’s possible.” Laura continued, “We went through a couple of rounds of sketches for the laces because we were so inspired by it, and then we realized that you couldn’t just see what was beautiful about the lace itself. It’s nice to just look at what this fabric wants to be.” “We just had to let it all go,” added Kate.Dresses were clean, with barely any visible seams or darts. There was indeed a sense of covering a body with fabric and building a dress on the spot; like the white dress that opens the lookbook, with its simple off the shoulder construction and extra-long stand-alone lace sleeves; or the look that followed it, a straight-cut strapless black lace top worn with swooshy asymmetrical skirt. Another dress mixed a geometric lace pattern that alluded to traditionally Southwestern patterns with another lace that mimicked a floral lace skirt that appeared to be almost crochet. Its construction was slightly more complex than the previous dresses, but the focus remained on the lace.That same feeling was present in the metallic linen used on a pair of dresses with slight leg-o-mutton sleeves and little collars in sunset shades of pink and yellow; and another shrunken tailored jacket and mermaid skirt in gold. They were all transformed under the light, taking on the appearance of shiny PVC or molten metal. “We were really thinking about textures that could feel natural; it really reminded me of that glistening light,” added Laura.
Within this interest in the natural, there was also an impulse to bring together unexpected textures for some of the collection’s best pieces—a black cotton eyelet dress embroidered with white sequins; or a delicate black silk embroidered dress punctuated by white crochet-esque cotton insets for a very bird-like result.“The starting point was lace and things like the metallic linen: it feels like there was a real organic quality to the work, things that are actually rooted in a kind of connectivity to nature, but at the same time they feel modern,” said Laura. Kate added, “I think a lot of times when we think about ‘modern,’ it’s always about how we’re going to dress in the future, like a kind of tech version of something. And I feel like this was the opposite in terms of inspiration, but the result was something very, very new.”
9 September 2024
At Rodarte this season, Kate and Laura Mulleavy were in a bit of an abstract mood. “We were thinking about fantasy as in a fantasy realm, about transporting in and out of something,” Laura explained on a recent zoom. “We loved the idea of having optical illusions, the idea of not knowing where something starts and something ends.” A black sequined column gown had a corded lace ruffled collar attached with illusion lace so that it seemed as if it was just floating by itself; a black gown had a series of gathered ruffles in chick yellow, ballet pink, baby blue, white, and black that floated asymmetrically from the shoulders hiding the arms and obscuring most of the body. “It’s like a butterfly about to come out of its chrysalis,” added Mulleavy, and indeed there were two sequin embellished butterflies on the bodice.As of late, Rodarte’s gowns have been making many red carpet appearances, and there were plenty of options here for the stars (or those who just want to feel like one). These included a scarlet red sequined column gown with a small peplum at the waist and a hand-shaped rosette at the chest; slinky slip dresses straight out of the boudoir in silk with lace bodices or in the most languid and liquid of lamés; and a dusty pink lace dress with ruffled “shells” on the breasts. There was also a Victorian-inspired gown with oversized leg-o-mutton sleeves in delicate metallic corded lace. Another one in a semi-sheer cotton tulle embroidered with hundreds of tiny pearls and ruffles at the chest, the sleeves, and the skirt, felt like it was made for a goddess or maybe a witch.
16 February 2024
At Rodarte, Kate and Laura Mulleavy were indeed thinking about florals for spring. “We were thinking about clothing as gardens and flowers,” Laura said during a recent Zoom call. “The idea of people blooming, in a way, but also, how do we use the history of textures and color from Rodarte and celebrate that in a collection about gardens?” The answer to that question is by leaning in to what they do best. The opening gown, with its bodice made from layers of purple and black lace and beaded embroidery at the bust, a sweeping voluminous skirt made from strips of organza in gradient shades of purple, and a matching capelet in the same organza ruffles, set the tone. They may have been thinking about flowers, but there were no dresses for wallflowers here.Although there were a few ballgowns, they mostly kept the silhouette narrow and elongated. Silk bias-cut slip dresses, sometimes with little sleeves, had a 1930s feel; but it was their color palette—bright iris, peony yellow, emerald green, cornflower, and ultramarine, punctuated with black lace appliqués or black velvet bows—that made them more readily identifiable as dresses of our current era. “Even if we’re referencing an era, I don’t think that the overall coming-together of a collection ever feels vintage,” Kate explained. “So even if it’s a vibe or a cut that you could align with a time period somehow by the color or the construction, it feels fresh.”A highlight of the collection was a trio of dresses in an all-over beaded fabric: a ballet pink column with a delicate peplum and a halter neckline, a short sleeve number in emerald green with a ruffled hem and a sculptural neckline that went past the shoulders, and a column gown with a drop waist and tiered ruffles in an alluring shade of orchid purple. They all belied the technical effort of their construction with their sparkly appeal, especially the last one, whose ruffles were shaped by horsehair. “It was one of the more difficult, construction-wise,” Kate explained. “What you don’t realize is that the dress is what it wants to be, and there’s no getting around that—there’s not a single machine stitch in it.”But the big standouts were the ruffle dresses that harked back to Rodarte’s first collection in 2006. The vertical ruffles were pieced together from different colors of silk organza, silk chiffon, silk charmeuse, and silk georgette and were decorated with fabric rosettes.
A short version in shades of lilac had definite youthful appeal, while a long sleeve version in shades of blue and white had a more dramatic effect. A sleeveless number that gathered red, yellow, green, purple, black, and turquoise demonstrated the designers’s mastery of color. “Color is something we’re really sensitive to as designers, and I feel like this is part of that, but it’s also something that you don’t realize until you are constructing the dresses,” Kate said. “A lot of people are interested in silhouette first; but I feel like we’re a hundred percent interested in color and texture first, and then it’s about building out the silhouettes.”
8 September 2023
For Rodarte’s pre-fall collection, Kate and Laura Mulleavy looked to nature. “We wanted to do something that was oriented towards that feeling of spring/summer, where you want to feel super-free and you’re starting to bring color into your wardrobe,” Laura explained on a recent phone call. Kate added: “We wanted to capture nature and how beautiful it is and how it can feel very ephemeral. [It’s about] this idea of something airy and kind of weightless.”That translated into floral prints of hydrangeas, roses, tulips, and camellias —photographed from their own garden—on breezy, wearable slip dresses in vintage-inspired silhouettes. A puff sleeve mini dress with an angled empire waist featured a purple rose print on an all-over miniature hearts background; and an otherwise classic spaghetti strap dress was decorated with an oversized pink rose print. Elsewhere, a couple of lace dresses, one in bubblebum pink with a capelet over the shoulders, and another in magenta with a ruffled skirt and dramatic scarf-like pieces hanging from delicate shoulder lines, looked like classic Rodarte; ditto the long white silk leaf-print dress with a floor-length cape.The Mulleavys’ penchant for eccentric knitwear was manifested in a group of mesh pieces decorated with hand-crochet flowers that seemed made for après-beach lounging. Most interesting were a group of frothy gathered chiffon and beaded dresses in pink or white, styled with dramatic veils. Whether meant for a wedding or a bride-to-be’s Vegas celebration, they captured that summer feeling of endless possibility.
6 April 2023
Inside the Williamsburg Savings Bank, a silver banquet was set. Silver chandeliers with lit candles illuminated trays of bread, baskets of fruits, and multi-tiered cakes, all covered in silver glitter and placed on silver tablecloths. This magical setting could only mean one thing: the Rodarte show.But the silver banquet revealed little about the collection that was to follow. “For whatever reason, this season we were like, ‘we wanna do something inspired by fairies.’” Kate Mulleavy explained the morning before the show at their makeshift SoHo studio (both sisters still call California home). “Our mom’s an artist so we asked her, ‘Can you draw us some fairies?’” She did. (She also drew the mushrooms for their spring 2022 collection.) Her colored pencil illustrations were then blown up and placed across airy caftans with feather or ruffled chiffon trims. The approach was most successful when it was turned into a repeat pattern, abstracted over a photographic background as on the long gown with an asymmetrical neckline that featured an all-over green fairy print placed over a moody, clouded night sky. The result was weird and romantic.This being a Rodarte show, the fairies weren’tjustfairies. They were gothic fairies (in Siouxsie Sioux-inspired eye makeup and black lipstick). Laura and Kate have always had a penchant for finding beauty in darkness (their fall 2008 collection was inspired in part by Japanese horror films), but the darkness wasn’t so much horror as it was maybe a sense of time that’s passed. (The illustrations, the make-up, and even the Tori Amos song that closed the show all felt deeply nostalgic, at least to this reviewer.) But whatever it was, the gothic fairies led the Mulleavys to a collection full of glamorous evening gowns.A series of languid jersey numbers with dramatic bell sleeves opened the show. “It’s interesting to try to do impact with a more linear silhouette, because usually you think of impact and you think of volume,” Kate explained. They were followed by different versions in burnout velvet, embellished with sequins or with floral appliqués, the sleeves dragging shredded cheese cloth that had been dyed black; one of the designers’ favorite old techniques that they brought back this season.In the studio many of the gowns were too heavy or too delicate to hang, so they all laid on their backs on tables, like amulets used to bring back the dead in a seance. It seemed fitting.
The Mulleavys also brought back their signature cobweb knits, made by hand from a collage of materials and textures: the one in shades of yellow with bits of silver felt joyous.Elsewhere, black satin bias-cut dresses had a 1930s feel with Victorian details like V-shaped lace insets, velvet mutton-sleeve bodies with white lace trim, and white lace capelets. Favorites were the three glorious all-over beaded fringe slip dresses with oversized black velvet sleeves. “It gives a frame for them in a weird way,” Kate said. “The beading is so light and ethereal, so it was important for us to figure out ways to anchor it to the storytelling.”Four models wore bulbous shapes made entirely from metallic fringe. They were powerful and fun, and the way they caught the light as the models walked down the runway brought an element of whimsy and fantasy to the collection. The silver one was added to the lineup last minute, after the silver banquet was suggested for the set design. “You have to stay open; every day you have a new creative point and until the last minute you’re still pushing to make it better and more your story,” Laura said. She was talking about the silver gown, but she could’ve been speaking about their creative approach as a whole. “This show, to me, is exactly who we are as designers,” Kate added.
10 February 2023
“We started off by being very inspired by music and the theatricality of performing on stage,” said Laura Mulleavy, explaining Rodarte’s spring collection on a recent Zoom call, sitting next to her sister Kate. Even if you hadn’t heard her say it, you’d only need to take a quick glance at the first look of the collection to get it: a model in a psychedelic swirled slip dress, her blue hair asymmetrically Aqua Net-ted to new heights. “We were really wanting to feel something that was really vibrant and alive and about lighting and connectivity,” said Mulleavy.The color palette was one way the sisters achieved their sartorial goals, especially on simple slip dresses—some lingerie-inspired, others with a more vintage flare—in shades of acid orange, turquoise blue, grass green, and rose petal pink, familiar to anyone who grew up a little bit alternative in the ’90s. Burnout velvet, a staple fabric of the era, stood out on a dress made of light blue chiffon, where it featured a print of white and black horses, and on an asymmetric dress made of white, magenta, and purple chiffon stripes languidly draped on the body, with the excess fabric creating a waterfall of ruffles. Look closer, and the white and black leaf print was also burnout metallic velvet. Though the dresses were by no means minimal, there was a certain ease to their silhouettes that stood in contrast to the beautifully intricate fabrics the Mulleavys worked with this season.A sense of ease and lightness was achieved on an entirely hand knit purple gown with long sleeves and a contrasting orange trim on the hem and cuffs. The yarn was made from a material “that almost looks like saran wrap,” said Kate Mulleavy. “It’s so soft,” added Laura. “No one believes it will be, and that’s what’s so cool about it. It’s very shiny.” They used the same fabric to create little skirt suits worn with matching cropped tops; one in shades of green, and another in orange and pink. The concept of light—both in terms of weight and illumination—played an important role in the collection. Metallic details abounded in fabric construction and embellishments, bringing into play the light that surrounds the garment as an added accessory. “All of the materials are in some way reflective of light. Even the lace has a sheen on it,” Laura said. “So what’s interesting is that you see them differently depending on the angle at which you are looking at them.
” This were manifested in straightforward ways, as in some of the looks in the second half of the collection: holographic sequins on an architecturally draped asymmetric gown; silver sequins on a spaghetti strap tunic and flared trousers; silver fringe on a Nick Cave-esque (the fine artist, not the musician) long sleeve cropped top and matching trousers; and gowns with mosaics made from small mirror shards.
28 September 2022
Such technical words like recalibration or pragmatism seem to have no place in the Rodarte world. Look at the gentle kiss of snow on the hedges in Kate and Laura Mulleavy’s new fall 2022 imagery, the fallen magnolia leaves, the Leonardian impossible landscape in brooding rose and dust. What place would marketing jargon have in this serene haven?In place of any raw-toothed tactical strategy, the sisters have intuition. Over 2020 and 2021, their innate sense of woman-ness has led them to swing their pendulum into collections about optimism, comfort, sweetness, sparkle, and motion. What they’ve landed on here, for fall 2022, is equilibrium.In pastel imagery by Daria Kobayashi Rich, with set design by Tina Pappas and Adam Siegel and floral design by Joseph Free, the Mulleavys have found the happiest, tenderest of marriages between the tiered cascades of blush tulle worn by Lili Reinhart, the crisp pink suiting donned by Janicza Bravo, the patterned tea dress on Marlee Matlin, and the jeans—yes jeans, not seen this side of a Rodarte collection since 2015—and legwarmers on Laura Love. “The fantasy of what we want to do and create is the number one driving force,” demurs Kate, but when the Rodarte fantasy intersects so potently with reality as it does here, the designers’ honestness can feel more relevant than ever.The Mulleavys dug deep into their core for this collection. Ballet has been a long time reference for them, the fury of dancers’s fragility and power vibrating in most Rodarte collections. They, of course, famously explored this in their costumes for Black Swan, and the film reconates abstractly in their blush-to-black palette this season. In between, they make pit stops in bright fuchsia and teal, resurrecting their famous spiderweb knits from fall 2008. “They are practical in a sense that they mold to your body and impractical in the most amazing way,” says Kate of the signature knits. The original versions—mini tube dresses and long cardigans—are back to the sure joy of many fans, but the sisters aren’t just playing to archive-mania. They’ve also made bustiers and capes in the knit, the latter worn by Lana Condor in a blue look trimmed in feathers. “The cape,” Kate says, “is practical and whimsical.” And sometimes you need fashion to be just that, equal parts a slip dress and a fantasia. It’s that kind magic that makes so many celebrities show up for a Rodarte photoshoot: The girls who get it, get it.
20 April 2022
Over the past 18 months, Kate and Laura Mulleavy have made a promise to meet their woman where she is. When she was at home, they gave her house dresses and silken pajamas, and when she was slowly returning to going out, they sent out floral leggings and sequined mini suits. Their spring 2022 collection was a proper declaration of re-emergence, of spiritual glitz, and of reconnecting to nature.From the first white dress with trailing black triangles at the sleeve to the last mushroom printed bubble dress, this was a collection meant for movement. It helped push the Mulleavys’ message that after rains and scorching heat, today was a blissful and windy 70 degrees. Gusts flared out their hems, made their beaded fringe dance, and blew up their circular bubble dresses to spectacular effect. The Rodarte woman, once a wallflower, was now in the height of her natural power. Ornately beaded blazers offered her something relatively new to wear, too—even ornately beaded anemone and shell dresses had a newfound lightness to them.And then, with the speakers crackling under a vibrato ofaaaaahhhhhs, came a sunset of draped dresses and barefoot models. Was it a sun salutation, an homage to cacti, or a cult offering? In the minds of the Mulleavy sisters it was gestural, turning their models into a painter’s palette to celebrate the raw beauty of the earth. It’s a personal message for them: Their mother is an artist, and their father is a botanist specializing in fungi. That blossoming mushroom finale dress was hand drawn by their mother and, in a way, about their father. So much ink has been spilled about the dynamic between Kate and Laura, but their mighty artistry was clearly cultivated and nurtured by their parents. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree; and the Rodarte woman will feel comforted and extra glam in the family’s beautiful new collection.
11 September 2021
Okay, I don’t want to be a traitor to my generation and all, but I really don’t get how people dress today. To lift another phrase from Cher Horowitz, fashion is coming out of an “ickiness” period, one dominated by home clothes and general dishevelment. If the brassy protagonist ofCluelesscan teach us anything, it’s that what we wear can be a transformational and purposeful act.So what a delight it is to see Alicia Silverstone, the actress behind Cher’s cattily wholesome persona, sun-kissed and smiling in Rodarte’s fall 2021 look book and film, alongside Aurora James, Heather Kemesky, and other models. The campy, kitschy teen world of Amy Heckerling’s 1995 classic might seem miles away from the broody gothicism often associated with Rodarte, but Kate and Laura Mulleavy grew up onClueless. They saw it in theaters in their native California—and then rented it “hundreds” of times from their local video store.The plaid suits and slip dresses Cher wears in the film aren’t recut one-to-one in the Mulleavys’ fall 2021 interpretation of ’90s style. Theirs has always been a more abstract aesthetic. This season, they started with a bias-cut halter midi-dress in cartoon hibiscus prints or vixen sequins held up with a ribbon bow at the neck. They learned last season that waft-y, comfortable dresses do well—see Selena Gomez and Mindy Kaling in their tea-length frocks—and extrapolated on them with V-neck dresses and flutter-sleeve maxis in a mix of vintage-store pastel florals and grungy black. For going out, they built up their sequined offering, and for staying in they translated their floral prints into stretch dresses, tops, and pants. There’s also a big varsity jacket, an evolution of their popular souvenir style, worn by models of all genders.One of the crucial lessons ofCluelessis that the right outfit can change your stature, your mood, even your life. The Mulleavys understand this, and they imbue that cinematic sense of dressing up for who you aspire to be into their collections. They’re famous for their blancmange red carpet dresses, but the Mulleavys do make clothing for people’s actual, beautiful, and mundane lives. Some might bristle at the sight of stretch pants in the assortment here. “We are thinking about how people want to wear things,” Laura says. “I don’t think I could even design outside of this moment.
”Cluelesshelped boost the profile of “totally important designers” who, with big-time runways and in-store displays of stretch knit tights, jeans, and T-shirts, transformed the look of ’90s femininity. The Mulleavys have the right idea for how to do that for a millennial generation that dreams big and dresses cozy. Let’s see how they balance it all out on their return to the New York runway this fall.
19 May 2021
When Kate and Laura Mulleavy started Rodarte in 2005, it was their furious imagination that kept them inside day and night, hand-sewing floral dresses while watching films. Fifteen years later, the dual crises of a global health pandemic and raging wildfires forced the sisters back into that state: at home, together, with only their creativity to occupy them. While their spring 2021 collection was borne from the same cloistered Californian sisterhood of their earliest outings, the final products couldn’t be more visually different. Call spring 2021 a more practical magic.It’s not so much that the tulle explosions or the cake topper confections have dulled; in the face of such tough times, the sisters are emphasizing the importance of making fashion for this fractured world. “Everything we do is about fantasy and dreams, but we are located in a moment, and we are a part of what is happening now,” said Kate. A fanciful gown, both designers agree, has little place in today’s world, so instead they channeled their efforts into clothing they would want to wear now “without distilling the ideas.” What they’ve gained from a decade and a half in business is a firm understanding of their brand codes: florals, veils, just slightly off sweetness.With this collection, they have proven their ability to make inherently useful garments that don’t compromise on the Rodarte DNA. Pajama sets, slips, and robes appear in dainty and orderly floral prints inspired by their local gardens. The floral story continues in the ’40s dresses they played with last season, now relaxed in shape with prints that radiate from the navel or appear in handkerchief-like grids. Silk sweatshirts, trackpants, and midi-skirts continue the motif, trimmed in lace or ruffles. Twill trousers in pastel shades of blue and pink are the rare unprinted items (the pockets are heart-shaped and the buttons are crystal).All this is topped off with silk floral wreaths that frame models’ faces, giving them the impression of fairies, nymphs, or other magical woodland sprites. But seeing them alight in the California hills, photographed for the look book on late summer’s few habitable days between a heatwave and a fire, gives their whimsical frocks, bobby socks, and lace Church gloves a haunting undertone. As masterful image makers, the Mulleavys can embed many visual messages into a single moment.
The sisters spoke of this collection being “a centering of thought,” and with a simple beauty painted against the devastation of our times, they managed to create a potent fantasy: one where we get through this without losing our sense of wonder.
14 September 2020