The designer interview: Roksanda Ilinčić
Launched in 2005, ROKSANDA is very much revered for its bold use of color, luxurious fabrics and elegant lines. Here, LAURA ANTONIA JORDAN talks to the eponymous label’s founder, ROKSANDA ILINČIĆ, about her artistic influences, why she designs for every facet of femininity and how she navigated her way through lockdown to create a SS21 collection that combines function and fantasy – to reflect the escapism and comfort women are craving right now
Were it not for the fact that we are speaking via Zoom, you wouldn’t know to look at Roksanda Ilinčić that the UK is currently in the grips of yet another national lockdown. Rather than appearing frazzled (which would be entirely justifiable right now), the Serbian-born, London-based designer is the epitome of poise, eschewing working-from-home loungewear for a quietly sophisticated silk-satin top and a slash of red lipstick. “There are really wonderful moments happening that we should appreciate,” she says, before adding with a laugh: “But, overall, let’s just face it – it’s horrible!”
That dichotomy – between strength and vulnerability, elegance and ease – is at the core of Roksanda, the namesake brand she founded in 2005. As a designer, and a woman, Ilinčić acknowledges that we contain multitudes. With their swooping silhouettes, artful draping and exuberant, paint-box palette, her designs exude a soft power that has made them a hit with everyone from Tracee Ellis Ross and Cate Blanchett to FKA Twigs. Roksanda pieces are unapologetic; wearing Roksanda implies you’re not afraid to be noticed, to take up space. ‘Femininity’ is one of the catch-all words often used to describe her collections but, in Ilinčić’s universe, this isn’t a synonym for something twee that must be handled with care. Rather, it is emboldened, confident and, as a result, couldn’t feel more pertinent today.
“I always wanted my designs to have that multiple perspective – you can experience them in totally different ways,” she says. “Femininity can be perceived as something sweet and fragile, but I want to present it in a modern way – where you can still be feminine but feel strong if you want to, or, in total contrast, be very vulnerable. It is OK to be strong and it is OK to be weak. That juxtaposition of totally contrasting things was where I started and [is still important] in my label right now. I never turned towards something else or tried to reinvent it – I just tried to make it better.”
One of Ilinčić’s hopes is for women to put on her designs and “feel protected and sheltered”. It’s a turn of phrase that nods to her architectural training. Perceiving a lack of opportunities to build a career in fashion in Belgrade, she initially studied architecture and design. As time passed, however, “I realized that no matter how much I like architecture, and was discovering incredible things by studying it, it never consumed me [in the way fashion did].”
“I want to present femininity in a modern way – where you can still be feminine but feel strong if you want to, or, in total contrast, be very vulnerable. It is OK to be strong and it is OK to be weak
”
Ilinčić eventually enrolled at London’s Central Saint Martins, graduating with an MA in womenswear, where she studied under legendary tutor Louise Wilson. “She was such a guiding light in my life. What was incredible about her was that she could spot potential in you that you wouldn’t necessarily know yourself. She was quite tough as a teacher and very demanding – which I think was totally necessary; she would almost strip you down to your bones and your heart. You had to rediscover who you really are.”
For IIinčić, the move to focusing entirely on fashion didn’t feel like a change, but “going back home – to something that I tried to escape but just couldn’t”. Indeed, clothes were central to some of her formative memories; as a child, she would watch her mother having dresses made from fabrics she would pick up on her travels. The young IIinčić was entranced by the process; witnessing the alchemy of a piece of cloth being transformed into a dress was mesmerizing. “Those were the moments that are still very vivid in my memory,” she says. “Handling a fabric, realizing how it moves and what it can do, how it can be molded and changed into something much more emotional than just a piece of fabric.” That early appreciation of fashion as a craft, as much as an art, can still be seen in her work today. It makes her architectural training seem less of an anomaly and part of a continually evolving narrative. Just as you have to go inside a building to really appreciate it, you have to put on a Roksanda dress to fully ‘get’ it.
“What is important about fashion is the relevance; it has to talk to the time that we’re living; it has to talk to the people we are
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IIinčić’s fearless flexibility has been a lifeline this year. Despite having finished designing the spring/summer ’21 collection just before the fall of 2019, when the world was flipped upside down by the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, she knew it had to change. “It was meant to look quite different. However, when the lockdown happened, the collection that was originally conceived pre-lockdown didn’t seem as relevant,” she explains. “And I think what is important about fashion is the relevance; it has to talk to the time that we’re living; it has to talk to the people we are. So, I think it was necessary to change it, shift it, redesign it.”
The resulting collection had to be worked on with her team over a laptop screen. “It wasn’t as difficult as it must have been for others. What was tricky was not being able to see the toiles. That restriction of not being able to touch and feel those three-dimensional, tactile things in real life was probably the hardest thing we had to deal with. So this collection is totally about lockdown, about this very, very strange, soul-searching, hard year when we all had to look back into our hearts, back at who we are, what my brand is about [and] what its place is.”
IIinčić has triumphed in finding a place for it. It has been “stripped down quite a lot”, she admits, but adds that there are “still the dreamy elements that are always present in my work”. This season, she zeroed in on the comfort women are craving right now, via an emphasis on knitwear “you can wear inside the house but that will also lift your spirits” – standout pieces such as a geometric, color-block sweater, an oversized-knit polo with contrasting pocket, or a pair of burnt-sienna-hued, striped-cuff trackpants. Unsurprisingly, her sartorial nod to the lockdown is luxe rather than lazy.
Echoing those contrasts that are always at the heart of her work, function and fantasy can happily coexist in IIinčić’s world. So spring/summer ’21 was also a celebration of the mood-boosting joy of dressing up, the connection it gives us to bigger possibilities – both within and beyond ourselves. A sunshine-yellow cotton poplin midi dress – with signature sculptural sleeves – is easy, sure, but it’s also bold, glamorous, the definition of optimistic dressing. A feathered zingy pink peplum top, meanwhile, is the serotonin shot we all need now – on-screen or otherwise.
“I don’t think Roksanda stands only for the clothing. It’s much more than that
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Rather than the design, however, IIinčić’s most “radical” change for the season was how she chose to present the collection. Limited by government restrictions, the runway show she would normally host (former Roksanda shows have taken place at London’s Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park and in a courtyard at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) was replaced by personal appointments held in an apartment curated by IIinčić to feel like her own home. Expressing her sensitive eye for art and design, which it seems is always switched on (she asks me about the paintings in the background of my own apartment as we talk), it was filled with pieces by female artists and designers such as Lina Bo Bardi and Charlotte Perriand. And rather than static models, she drew on a cast of women including Noëlla Coursaris, founder of the Malaika Foundation, and body-image campaigner Honey Ross. It felt touchingly intimate, but also made a larger statement on how clothes are about so much more than just fashion; the best of them adapt to and reflect the world around us. “I don’t think Roksanda stands only for the clothing,” she says. “It’s much more than that.”
“I have always felt that once you invest in my clothes, you invest for you, for your daughter, for your granddaughter, to wear again and again for years and years to come
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Having already decided, pre-pandemic, to start presenting just two, rather than four, collections per year, Iinčić also pre-empted the slowdown that is happening in fashion right now. It made sense to her, she said, since her clothes “are not made to last for a season. They’re not old or vintage or less important just because they were designed a few seasons before. I have always felt that once you invest in my clothes, you invest for you, for your daughter, for your granddaughter, to wear again and again for years and years to come.” Nor does she think that forever pieces are necessarily basics. “A big fluorescent gown that is ‘forever’? Sure… From Roksanda!” she laughs.
Forever is, of course, a big word. Iinčić knows that. Having navigated a turbulent year sensitively – not only as a designer but also as a businesswoman – now she is looking forward, hoping to continue to grow and evolve the Roksanda brand. One ambition, however, remains the same as it always has been for her – for the women who wear her designs not to feel like somebody else, but to feel like “a more empowered version of themselves, more free to be who they are. It’s about them, it’s about women showing who they are.”
Laura Antonia Jordan is fashion news and features director of British Grazia