Gothic Fairies Wear Rodarte

To present Fall 2023, Kate and Laura Mulleavy wanted “the theater of a fashion show.”

It feels insufficient to describe Rodarte collections as seasonal ready-to-wear: Kate and Laura Mulleavy build immersive, textural worlds with their own lore that you can believe their models and muses actually live in, whether that’s a pink, celebrity-filled ballet recital or, in the case of Fall 2023, a gothic fairy tale featuring fantastical beading, elfin ear cuffs and dramatically-sleeved black gowns Morticia Addams would certainly approve of.

According to Laura, the team began working on the collection last April, with this idea of telling a story about gothic fairies.

“When we started, we asked our mother to paint a series of fairies for us, and she did, so we started there,” she tells Fashionista. “We developed them into prints, which took such a long time… You start realizing what you’re inspired by, with an idea, and you take baby steps. One idea leads to the next, and you develop it.”

Last fall, they started talking about the best format to reveal Rodarte’s latest, and decided a show was the best avenue — “like, ‘This idea is really strong, and I’d like it to be seen theatrically,'” Laura says. “When you do a show, not everything goes right. You have all that adrenaline, and you’re such a perfectionist. With a photo shoot, you can retouch or reshoot things — it’s not the same as the theater of a fashion show.”

So the brand took over the Williamsburg Savings Bank in Brooklyn and staged an elaborate, silver glitter-coated tablescape that models circumnavigated wearing fringe beaded dresses, tactile multi-colored knits, lacy slips and tinseled-out overcoats, plus the occasional set of fairy wings.

“We like to storytell,” Laura says. “You go on a journey.”

The Fall 2023 journey was one that expanded “gothic fairies” into a whole cast of fantastical characters, even more fantastically dressed. Moody color palette aside, the models’ dramatic “Black Swan”-esque eyeliner and dark lips gave the whole collection Scorpian undertones — but you’d be surprised to learn that neither Mulleavy sibling has prominent Scorpio placement on their charts (at least they don’t think).

“I’m an Aquarius,” says Kate.

“We had a collection where we had scorpions,” Laura adds. “Spring 2014.”

Well, maybe the intention wasn’t to target Scorpios. (Though, it worked on me.) For Laura, it was about creating something that allows people’s imagination to go wild.

“You can dream in fashion, and that’s what’s so fun about it,” she says. “Fashion, to me, is a true artistic expression. It’s why we got into it and why we love it.”

See the full Rodarte Fall 2023 collection below.

Rodarte Fall 2023. Photo: Imaxtree