Pretty in Pink: Meet the Designer Ryan Roche
As a runner-up at the prestigious CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund awards this past fall, Ryan Roche is, at the moment, one of the most talked-about designers in New York City. But unlike most young talents showing this fashion week, she lives and works in the country. And to hear the 36-year-old designer tell it, her 12-acre property in upstate New York is every bit as inspiring as the sidewalks of Manhattan. “The isolation allows me to just be really focused on what I’m doing,” says Roche, whose design studio is housed in a converted barn. “I just think that I’m quite a sensitive person, and the peace and quiet is really good for my spirit.”
It’s been good for business, too. Since founding her namesake line in 2011, Roche has amassed a loyal following for clothes that feel a bit like the sartorial equivalent of a weekend in the Catskills: quiet and invitingly cozy. Her fluffy hand-knit sweaters (some made by a women’s cooperative in Nepal) and casual silk separates have an artisanal appeal that’s timeless as well as ageless. “My daughter’s friend who’s 13 is one of my biggest fans,” Roche says, “and my grandmother who’s 88 is one of my biggest fans.” (So, too, are a number of celebrities known for their eccentrically feminine style, including Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jemima Kirke.)
Roche’s success might also be due in part to the enviable work-life balance she’s managed to establish. She had two children in her mid-twenties, and soon afterward gave up a corporate career in knitwear design to launch Mor Mor Rita, a children’s line and boutique near her home in Williamsburg Brooklyn. After a stint living in nearby Bushwick, which she calls “an industrial wasteland,” she closed the store and moved with her husband and children (she now has three) into a 17th-century stone house 90 miles upstate. The area, she says, is “great for my family” and reminds her of her native Idaho.
Though Roche has since stepped away from children’s wear to focus on her namesake women’s line, the wonder of childhood continues to inform her work — particularly the color palettes. Roche is known for her use of pink — her favorite color, she says, since her days of being “obsessed with My Little Pony. In Roche’s hands, though, it’s anything but girly: blush becomes a flattering neutral base, while unexpected jolts of fuchsia enliven simple sweaters. “I have a physical reaction to color; pink makes my heart skip a beat,” Roche says. “People say, ‘there’s something about the way that you do your color—it’s breaking the stereotype.’”
Roche is set to further upend expectations when she presents her fall/winter 2015 presentation at the High Line Hotel today — an event which, post-CFDAs, should serve as a coming-out party of sorts. The collection, she says, combines influences from ‘90s minimalism with some of her personal icons of Western style, like Georgia O’Keefe. “It feels like a really natural progression,” she says. She promises more tailored pieces in addition to her signature knits: sharp jackets, trousers, woven capes. But it’s those sweaters — tactile and elegant with a sly sense of humor — that keep her loyal clientele coming back for more. “I want women to wear them and live and love in them,” she says. “It’s like an amazing pair of old jeans. It just gets better the more it’s loved.”
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