Simone and Max Rocha publish books on fashion and cooking (#1683465)

Think of it as cool sibling symbiosis in fashion and fine food, since designer Simone Rocha and brother Max Rocha have each just published books on their adventures on runway and in kitchen.

Though creating in very different fields, both have in common their shared ability to combine the unexpected – in Simone’s case, sweetness and perversity; in Max’s asparagus with romesco sauce.
 
Simone’s eponymously named book, published by Rizzoli, is like her fashion – elegantly idiosyncratic. Texts, like many of her dresses, come in blushing pink, photos are cropped into Gothic arches, like the church locations she uses for many shows. From runway images to tiny snapshots of the disparate fabrics Simone loves to combine: nude tulle; tapestries; grandiose jacquards; metallic tinsels; pink cottons; crystal bows; thick and thin lace; metallic beading and Perspex. Her great skill remains the ability to blend the Renaissance opulence of Elizabethan England and Irish mythology, with sculptural forms and a dash of punk rock.

Divided into five chapters, each beginning with a lapidary series of nouns and adjectives, just like her own program notes. So, the chapter Pony Kids starts with: Youth, Unruliness, Naivety, Uniform, Blossoms, Wild and refined.
 
In among the fabulous fashion photography are neat closeups of her fetish pearly Egg Bag, and a great caravanserai of stars and artists captured in photos while attired in Simone’s rebellious delicacies – Cindy Sherman, Helena Bonham Carter, Precious Okoyomon and Chloe Sevigny.

 
In short, it’s the coolest compendium of a designer who passes over that subtle frontier into the realm of art, which is what Simone Rocha has done with rare brilliance. Testifying to the estime in which London-based Simone is held, on Monday she recieved the British Womenswear Designer Award for 2024.
 
Simone and Max are the children of famed designer John Rocha, himself a sui generis Chinese/Portuguese creator born in Hong Kong and based in Dublin. Max’s cookbook even contains recipes named after their stylish mum – like Odette’s Pork Pasta or Odette’s Cold Roast Ham, that includes cider, celery and Dijon mustards among other elements.
 
Max’s book is entitled “Café Cecilia”, after his much-loved restaurant on Regent’s Canal in Bethnal Green, north London, where Dublin fare is blended with French classics likes rabbit with mustard. Not surprisingly for an Irish chef it opens with this beloved Guinness bread, made with jumbo oats and pumpkin seeds. It’s a signature offering often served with a triangle of anchovies, sandwiched between sage leaves fried in light batter.

Disarmingly, Max in his forward reveals: “When I look back on how I got into cooking professionally, it was mainly an attempt to escape depression.” Adding that it took him 20 minutes one morning to summon up the courage to go into his first job in a restaurant in Spring. But after stints there, and at Mangia in Copenhagen, St John and then River Café in London, he opened Café Cecilia. It’s named after his paternal grandmother, decorated with walls featuring Irish artists his parents love like the acclaimed sculptor Guggi.
 
And it’s a must-visit restaurant in hipster London, just like his sister’s shows. And where Simione feted her September post-show soirée in September 2021 – familial symbiosis indeed.