FAMILY PORTRAIT

After a decade in business, motherhood led Simone Rocha to one of her most personal collections yet.

- VÉRONIQUE HYLAND

It’s almost like a play,” Simone Rocha says of putting together a fashion collection. “There’s a beginning, middle, and end. A narrative.” Rocha has had narratives on her mind lately—beginnings and middles, though certainly not ends. She’s looking back on slightly over 10 years of shows, an eternity for an independent fashion brand. Sitting in the lobby of a celebrity-frequented downtown New York hotel, she nurses a cup of tea, unmistakable in ruffled, voluminous all-black and chunky jewelry, and remembers the beginning.