Rochambeau (Q9050)
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Rochambeau is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Rochambeau |
Rochambeau is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
As they continue to find their feet as a young men’s label, it seems Rochambeau’s Laurence Chandler and Joshua Cooper are beginning to appreciate that the fashion calendar is a hectic, nutty place. “After competing [for] a string of prizes and awards,” said Chandler, at the lookbook shoot, “we realized the fashion market is absolutely crazy.” So they’ve shrewdly decided to align themselves more with the contemporary art world. The slower, deliberative pace has already led to capsule collections—with retailers Lane Crawford, Just One Eye, and The Webster—based around major art events like Miami Beach Art Basel and, soon, the Dallas Art Fair.The return to sanity was surely welcomed by Aaron Curry, the Los Angeles sculptor and painter known for a punkish, prankish street edge. In another collaboration, for Fall, he was back with his playful doodles and squiggles, which the designers pulled from his sketchbook. One of those doodles, a “lovesack” graphic resembling a heart, was, in fact, subversively formed by inverting a sack of another kind. Other mischievous elements, like a “mud’r fk’r” script, were splashed across a range of streetwear basics—sweats, hoodies, cords, anoraks, baggy polos—in a palette of black and pastels, which was daring in its own way. A pale lavender velour bomber with canvas lining (and matching slacks) was undeniably a work of art, while a corduroy jacket in multiple blue hues and a look-at-me bright orange shearling jacket were nicely executed. Begging to be touched and handled, an array of super-soft, super-fleecy pieces felt full of possibility. So far, the brand’s newfound anti-fashion stance seems to be working.
13 February 2018
Rochambeau’s Laurence Chandler and Joshua Cooper sat out last men’s week to develop a women’s collection, which they introduced today on a coed runway. And like their last men’s collection, a re-creation of an insane asylum run amok in collaboration with Devo frontman Mark Mothersbaugh, this outing smacked of dystopian punk. The designers incorporated the unsettling, cartoonish abstractions of Los Angeles artist Aaron Curry, whose gangly sculptures were also installed along the catwalk.Chandler described the collaboration as a weeks-long immersion into each other’s creative process as they transferred Curry’s signature squiggles, blobs, bubbles, and melting figures into the all-over prints and appliqués that appeared on sweats, denims, macs, and other streetwear staples. According to Chandler, the three share a fascination with skate culture, sci-fi, and video games. “Plus,” he said, “we got about 150 pairs of Air Force 1 from Nike that they let us play with. We enlarged the swoosh and added dangling mini-sculptures straight from Aaron’s imagination.”Strong though it was, this collection lacked some of the dynamism and frisson of the label’s previous outing. Still, it’ll appeal to Rochambeau’s growing fanbase who are looking for something different and independent without reinventing their wardrobe. And it affirms a winning new direction for the label, whose MO going forward will be to bridge the domains of art and fashion. It’s a formula that works. Look for Rochambeau x Aaron Curry at Art Basel in Miami and Hong Kong.
11 September 2017
Rochambeau’s Laurence Chandler and Joshua Cooper sat out last men’s week to develop a women’s collection, which they introduced today on a coed runway. And like their last men’s collection, a re-creation of an insane asylum run amok in collaboration with Devo frontman Mark Mothersbaugh, this outing smacked of dystopian punk. The designers incorporated the unsettling, cartoonish abstractions of Los Angeles artist Aaron Curry, whose gangly sculptures were also installed along the catwalk.Chandler described the collaboration as a weeks-long immersion into each other’s creative process as the duo transferred Curry’s signature squiggles, blobs, bubbles, and melting figures into the allover prints and appliqués that appeared on sweats, denims, macs, and other streetwear staples. According to Chandler, the three share a fascination with skate culture, sci-fi, and video games. “Plus,” he said, “we got about 150 pairs of Air Force 1s from Nike that they let us play with. We enlarged the swoosh and added dangling mini sculptures straight from Aaron’s imagination.”Strong though it was, this collection lacked some of the dynamism and frisson of the label’s previous outing. Still, it will appeal to Rochambeau’s growing fan base, which is looking for something different and independent without reinventing their wardrobe. And it affirms a winning new direction for the label, whose m.o. going forward will be to bridge the domains of art and fashion. It’s a formula that works. Look for Rochambeau x Aaron Curry at Art Basel in Miami and Hong Kong.
11 September 2017
If you’re going to embark on a collaboration with a musical avant-wizard, you can’t go wrong with Mark Mothersbaugh, cofounder, lead singer, and current member of Devo, the post-punk, Surrealist-pop band that hit it big with “Whip It” in 1980. That was the brilliant, mutual-friend-enabled thinking behind Rochambeau’s Fall collection, a thrilling, when-worlds-collide kick in the pants recalling Marc Jacobs’s collab with Stephen Sprouse for Louis Vuitton some years ago.Mothersbaugh is also a prolific visual artist (not to downplay his musical contributions toPee-wee’s PlayhouseandRugrats) with more than 150 gallery shows under his belt. And it was clear he was in charge of the staging here, too, which included a scrim not quite opaque enough to disguise the movements of the white-coated performers behind it. At the presentation’s start, they emerged as inmates running the asylum, their faces obscured with masks dripping with paint as they pranced and paraded about, mocking and taunting the models and audience alike. It was hysterically discomfiting.The paint drippings idea, among other graphics splashed across the collection, was the brainchild of Mothersbaugh, too; he also provided the discordant soundscape. “We embraced, then rejected sartorial norms,” said Rochambeau’s Laurence Chandler—who codesigns with Joshua Cooper—of a smeared houndstooth overcoat, gray blazer assaulted with coral goop at the shoulders, and yellow mac streaked with silver paint. Asymmetric wide stripes and baggy overalls (as those worn by fellow designer Adam Selman) hammered home a sense of puerile destruction.Quite obviously this was all a statement, a sharp metaphor for the new situation we find ourselves in, one controlled by grown-up children. The name Devo, taken from the notion that the human race may in fact be devolving over time, not progressing, could hardly be more apt. Chandler and Cooper affirmed as much with only a look, without having to say a word.
2 February 2017