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NEW YORK, United States — There's something witchy about Rodarte, something elemental and eerie. The Mulleavy sisters' clothes look summoned up, rather than designed. Their shows are rituals. The spirits they conjure most often are earth and air (sprouting poppies and neon tubing on Tuesday's catwalk), though they've had their moments with fire and water too. Their latest presentation was staged as a faceoff between the forces of light and dark, with a finale that poised the white witch against the black witch, both veiled.
Appropriately, the genesis of the collection was a trip to San Francisco, America's home of dark magic and erstwhile college town for Kate and Laura. They were sitting in the café where Francis Ford Coppola wrote The Godfather when they had their Eureka moment. They said the movie filtered into the final product, along with SF's art nouveau architecture, but it was surely more the city's open invitation to re-invention in its golden era of free thinking that had a bigger influence. That's what the Mulleavys do each season: re-invention with a side order of free association. Which is how a brown leather jacket sprouts white leather ruffles, then gets matched to fragile lace-trimmed tulle. Or a big shaggy goat fur smothers a patchworked leather trench. That shouldn't have worked, but the result was purest fashion voodoo, like the floral/lace ensemble that came later, also swathed in goatish shag.
The Mulleavys are consummate storytellers, which is more and more of an asset in this uncertain period. San Francisco is an ideal town to tell stories about. Maybe that’s why this particular collection was a strong one for the sisters. Rodarte can occasionally tip towards airy-fairy costume, but the innate theatricality of the clothes worked to their advantage here, because there was the city’s real history to anchor the romantic dresses spiralling into ruffles and the darkly glittering collages of lace and tulle. (The spirit of legendary drag troupe the Cockettes hovered close.)
The question lingers as to whether there are enough witchy women in the world to make a sustainable business of such an aesthetic, but the Mulleavys certainly cast a spell over New York fashion’s favoured few.
