Rochambeau & the Travelling Solder

The inspiration for spring/summer 2011 was taken from the traveling soldier, as Rochambeau fuses a conservative silhouette to military structure.

The vibrant colors are an expression of the soldier that travels the globe to assorted cultures. Accentuating this theme of differences are hyperbolic cuts and exaggerated patterns.

Makeup and hairstyles play on the notion of travelling throughout the desert to the point of wind- and sunburn.

It’s military expressionism a la Rochambeau!

See the look book here.

Photos Copyright Rochambeau.

Rochambeau: from the Streets of New York to the Hills of the Hmong

Designers Michael Venker, Joshua Cooper, and Laurence Chandler met at Parsons’ senior thesis show in 2007, afterwards launching the label Rochambeau, which is Egyptian for the popular game of rock-paper-scissors.

For spring/summer 2011, the Rochambeau collection takes us to the Far Eastern hills of Asia where the Hmong people dwell.

I first became acquainted with the Hmong in university when I was teaching refugees fleeing Laos, many of whom were Hmong. I then lived amidst the Hmong in China where they are readily called Miao.

The dress of the Hmong depends on the tribe, but what is pervasive among most Hmong tribes are colorfully embroidered garments and batik, which is fabric dyed with wax-drawn motifs.

Rochambeau incorporates the colors and other isolated garments into the 2011 spring/summer collection with draping, panels, and vesting.

Check out the entire collection here.

Photos Copyright Rochambeau.

Rochambeau—the Frame Every Natural Man Needs

Deriving its name from the Egyptian rock-paper scissors game, Rochambeau was born in New York, in 2007 when creative director Michael Venker met Joshua Cooper and Laurence Chandler at his senior thesis show where he won the Golden Thimble award.

Their 2009 a/w collection draws inspiration from Japanese architect Kuma Kengo.

Kuma Kengo 隈 研吾 was born 1954 in Kanagawa, Japan, graduating from the University of Tokyo in 1979 as an architect major. He continued his studies at Columbia University in New York from 1985 to 1986, and now he is a professor of system design engineering at Keio University in Tokyo.

Kuma’s lifetime goal is to “recover the tradition of Japanese buildings and reinterpret it for the 21st century.”

According to Kuma, every location is a product of nature and time, so architecture is merely a way to set nature within a frame so that we may experience it in a deeper, more intimate way. Drawing heavily on the Japanese tradition of transparency, Kuma utilizes natural light and natural materials to produce a new kind of transparency.

No wonder, in the 2009 a/w collection, Rochambeau employs Kuma’s approach to frame the natural beauty of the male silhouette with a minimalist but modern take on menswear!



Photo upper right by Wiiii Copyright GFDL on Wikipedia.
Slide show 2009 a/w collection Copyright Rochambeau.