BY JAY AQUINO

JUNE 19, 2026

For us, menswear should have the same flexibility, emotional range, and possibility as womenswear. It should not be limited to tailored suits, neutral colors, and conservative silhouettes, no matter how beautifully those codes may be executed. That is why Simone Rocha’s Pitti Uomo debut felt so significant. She did not simply add lace, tulle, and flowers to men’s clothing for decoration. Instead, she proposed a softer, stranger, and more vulnerable way of being dressed.

Rocha, the Dublin-born designer who established her label after graduating from Central Saint Martins in 2010, has long built her world around beauty with a thorn in it. Her femininity has never been the obvious Barbie kind. It is closer to Daphne Bridgerton wandering into a darker room or Marie Antoinette after the sugar has started to crack. Lace, florals, apron shapes, pearls, and tulle appear in her work carrying memory, tenderness, and sometimes unease.

At Pitti Uomo 110, staged in Florence from 16 to 19 June, Rocha was given an international menswear platform to let that language stand on its own. Her show took place at Teatro della Pergola, a 17th-century opera house, which felt like a fitting setting for a collection about performance, masculinity, and the tension between being watched and revealing oneself.

Pitti Uomo can often be read as a temple of classic masculine presentation: linen tailoring, polished loafers, and heritage fabrics. Rocha did not reject that world entirely. Instead, she introduced menswear with more inner life. This was a tender masculine uniform built through different characters such as the schoolboy, the artist, the worker, the romantic, the servant, the boy playing dress-up, and the man learning to be looked at.

Balletcore, cottagecore, angelic whitework, Japanese Lolita, Edwardian romance and domestic apron dressing all moved through the collection, yet Rocha kept that softness grounded through shirting, tailoring, workwear, rugby jerseys, leather, polished shoes and dark socks, ensuring the delicacy never drifted into fantasy but remained shaped by construction.

A black-and-white gingham shirt worn loose over cropped white trousers captured that balance early. The trouser hem, delicate and almost heirloom-like, brought in handcraft, while the black socks and polished shoes gave the look the discipline of a schoolboy uniform. A coat slung over the shoulder added ceremony, as though the model had been interrupted mid-dressing. It was youthful, undone, and subversive.

The black looks were even sharper. A cropped blouson over voluminous knee-length trousers created a rounded, almost bloomer-like proportion, but the dark palette prevented it from becoming sweet. Floral edging and corsage details added delicacy, while Mary Jane-style shoes pushed the look into Rocha’s familiar territory of romantic oddity.

Elsewhere, a rugby jersey cut with asymmetric frills turned school sportswear into something theatrical, while red gingham shorts introduced a note of innocence. The black outer layer disrupted that sweetness, making it feel deliberately awkward and proving Rocha’s understanding that prettiness becomes far more interesting when it carries a little discomfort.

The pastoral moments carried the same contradiction. A red gingham shirt, open and loose, was toughened by glossy black shorts, shifting cottage references into a more urban register. A landscape-printed top embellished with beads brought Florence into the clothes, worn over pale shirting and a wide, skirt-like trouser shape. British Fashion Journalist, Luke Leitch noted the collection’s references to A Room With A View, Florentine romance, ruffled rugby jerseys, back-cut tailoring, broderie anglaise, aprons, cornflowers, and deliberately undone styling.

The strongest pieces were those that made menswear feel ceremonial without losing its base in familiar garments. An oversized white pussy-bow shirt, opening into long scarf-like panels, sat over wide black trousers with a kind of devotional force. Its texture suggested bridal wear, angelic dresses, and religious clothing, but the trousers kept it grounded.

A cream leather-like pinafore worn over a white shirt transformed childhood and domestic dressing into something architectural, while a white apron edged with broderie anglaise and gathered into a ruffle treated gentleness as structure. Together, they asked a sharper question: why are domestic codes so rarely allowed into menswear unless they are framed as utility? Rocha gave the apron tenderness but also presence.

In tailoring, a grey Prince of Wales checked blazer worn over a sheer white organza-like tunic made that argument even clearer, placing classic menswear in direct conversation with transparency. The jacket supplied the familiar masculine shoulder, while the underlayer introduced exposure, lightness, and movement, highlighting the fact that the power of menswear does not disappear when sensuality enters the room.

The show’s emotional architecture also came from character. Kenneth Richard of The Impression reported that Rocha imagined men as painters, workers, performers, and craftsmen, while the staging placed guests on the theater stage itself, blurring the line between audience and performer. The collection’s florals also drew from costume trunks found in the theater, while cornflowers became one of its recurring motifs.

What makes Rocha’s menswear compelling is that it does not feel like womenswear copied onto male bodies. It feels like a different branch of the same tree. The Rocha man is not afraid of lace, flowers, volume, or transparency, but he is not reduced to fragility either. He wears gingham and broderie anglaise with black socks. He carries a flower bag but keeps his shoes polished. He can be tender, but he is not passive.

Of course, this collection will not be for everyone. Some will find it too romantic, too delicate, and too far from what they expect menswear to be. Menswear today is no longer one archetype moving through a few cities and cultures. It is a global field of identities, uniforms, and emotional propositions. Rocha’s contribution to menswear is an invitation to dress men with the same nuance, contradiction, and imagination that womenswear has long been allowed.

Discover Simone Rocha Spring/Summer 2027 collection here.