A Fresh Start

Roland Mouret is charting a new course, thanks to a partnership with Self-Portrait's Han Chong

- By Adrienne Gaffney

In the darkest days of his career, Roland Mouret got a very welcome call. Han Chong, the owner of the brand SelfPortrait, was on the line. It was November 2021, and Mouret's two-decade-old brand had just declared bankruptcy. Chong had an idea. But first, an important question.

"The first thing he asked was, How was my mental health? He imagined I was going through a massive situation," Mouret recalls. "The second was, Would you be interested in sitting down and talking about the future with us?" Mouret knew that the opportunity was a good one-with Self-Portrait, Chong had created a wildly popular brand, and what he was proposing would allow Mouret to remain as the creative director of his own label. The decision to pair with Chong under the SP Collection group came down to an emotional instinct that Mouret compares to choosing a life partner. "Having him ask about my mental health was something that really touched me," he says.