After 20 years in business – the anniversary he’s celebrating – Roland Mouret has a well-cemented relationship with the women who buy his clothes. At this stage, he’s learned the wisdom of concentrating on their feedback rather than being diverted by every passing trend. “It’s not about trying to be someone else, he says. “For me, it would be so wrong to try to be Vetements, because my customer is not that person.” Truth.
The Roland Mouret woman is essentially a liker of body-focused dressing, of pencil-skirts and drapes and heels. “They know exactly what they want,” he says, and knows it firsthand from hanging out with them socially, and selling to them in his store on Carlos Place in London. He loves the to-and-fro of hearing what individuals feel about what suits their various physiques and roles in life, and then devising design solutions to fit. “It’s all about them. It’s like playing tennis with them,” he laughs, “I don’t want to hit balls against a wall.”
For Pre-Fall, his prescriptions are combinations of structure and drape, always pulled together with a defined waist. Asymmetric necklines and uneven, table-cloth hemlines give a sense of modernity and movement in the clothes, while staying self-assuredly anchored – the Mouret woman is not someone who ever wants to become unmoored from her femininity. Whereas a decade ago, she’d have been an early adopter of one of Mouret’s game-changing hourglass Galaxy dresses, now she’s just as comfortable in one of his jumpsuits. With its wrapped caped top, it still zippers up in a torso-cinching manner, but projects today’s wider possibilities for elegant attire in social situations – fuss-free but sophisticated.
