Rodarte Catwalk Fashion Show SS10

The Rodarte-girls have created their own world. An imaginary world that’s ferocious rather than precious, not to mention very influential. And with its gothic character, it’s particularly in tune with the moment.
This collection, which married primitivism to futurism, was one of Rodarte’s most fully realized. The silhouettes were familiar, the  construction of the garments represented the apotheosis of the techniques—in knitwear, printing, draping —that the Mulleavy-sisters have been refining season after season. They aged, painted, burned, shredded, sandpapered, and otherwise destroyed all of the materials—including grungy scraps of plaid, plastic, cheesecloth, wool cobweb, crystals, macramé, leather, and more—until they bore only traces of what they had been originally.
The idea that someone could “be scarred and still beautiful” was the collection’s leitmotif. The designers made up their own story about a woman burned alive and  who is transformed into a California condor. Forced to survive in a war-torn landscape, she pieces together her attire from rags that only serve to expose her wounds.