For Grace Ling’s Oddities, she built a snow-white forest from live manzanita branches, bought at the LA flower market and flown to New York, then sculpted, painted white, and strung with thousands of silk strands. The idea was structure overhead giving way to softness at the floor, so that each look emerges from control into release. Against a collection of chrome thorns, burnt lace, and dagger motifs, it makes the models feel like they’ve wandered out of somewhere both delicate and dangerous. A month of planning, then a week of nonstop building to pull it off.

Ella Mae’s Peaceful Way runs in the opposite direction entirely. Marie Antoinette meets Snooki, or as Rose puts it, the beach of Jersey Shore inside the Palace of Versailles. Rococo drapery, neoclassical columns, glitter sand, and a defaced Fragonard all share the same room. On paper it shouldn’t work, and Rose’s take is that it only holds together because every single choice was made with total confidence. That’s the thread through both shows: two very different visions of femininity, each built without a hint of hesitation.

We’ll be looking further into Rose’s creative world soon with a feature on After the Tide, the group show she curated for LA Design Weekend.

Read the full interview below.

You’ve built brand experiences across spatial, graphic, physical, and digital work for everyone from Nike to Madeon. How did that path lead you to set design for fashion, and what does the runway let you do that other formats don’t?

My approach is to bring holistic visions to life. I always lead with the core idea. I don’t believe that the medium should constrain the intent. Sometimes the solution can be a logo, or it can be a space you can step into. I’ve built my career and sharpened my skillset to give the idea the creative voice that it needs, rather than the other way around.

That unbound way of working has naturally lead me to fashion. The fashion industry presents a fantasy world to its beholder. It operates in an entirely uncompromising manner, and it challenges me to meet the designer and the brand fully in their vision. There is no rulebook for how runway shows are built. Each are invented in its own manner and has required the most daring decision making and problem solving I’ve ever experienced in my career. The ephemeral nature of runway shows has allowed for me to push my imagination to a pinnacle for a glimmer of a moment in time.

You’ve talked about fashion becoming more mindlessly consumable and scrollable, and world-building as the answer, something no longer reserved for the major houses. What can a fully built world do for an emerging designer that a bare runway can’t?

In today’s digital world, there is always a more affordable alternative that will arrive at your doorstep faster. Designers now more so than ever need to be showcasing a vision that is all encompassing. Through thematically driven collections paired with immersive set designs, these designers adopt a larger-than-life identity that not only demonstrates how buyers can look, but also feel, move, and experience life through their design vision. The context provided through set design gives the clothing meaning, it is a peek into the world that this collection is imagined to live in, and the unique identity that embodies the brand.

For Grace Ling, you designed a snow-covered forest, with sculptural white branches draping thousands of silk strands that melt into snow at the runway’s edge. Walk us through how that world took shape from her collection, and how something that ephemeral actually gets engineered and built.

Grace Ling’s SS27 ‘Oddities’ plays into the tension between elements that are at odds with each other. Such as strength and sensuality, femininity and masculinity. The models present a beauty casted in chrome so sharp that it could harm. The accents on the clothing resemble motifs of scorpions, daggers, and mythical birds. Upon seeing her collection, it felt like it emerged from a mystical forest. Where the models were haunted by the curiosities that lurk within it. The white forest set frames itself around each look as the models emerge carrying traces of that journey through the burnt lace trim, chrome thorns, and leaves that hug around their bodies.

The set was designed to be an abstract interpretation of a snow fallen forest. The branches are live manzanita branches purchased from the LA flower market, flown with me to NY. My team prepped the branches, sculpted and painted them white. We attached fine panels of fringe along the branches, and we played with the layering to create the perfect frame for the entrance to the runway. My team and I worked non stop for a week before show, against a month of planning. The most difficult and the most important task was to reconstruct nature in a way that preserved its effortless beauty in visual composition, density, and texture.

Ella Mae’s world runs the opposite direction, Marie Antoinette meets Snooki, the Jersey Shore inside Versailles. How did that pairing come about, and how do you translate something that campy and hedonistic into a set that still reads as romantic?

This clash of the muses came from an admiration for maximalism. Both muses are rebels with unwavering confidence in their loud opulence. The key element to striking the perfect balance between decadence and camp is truly confidence. Every decision we made about the space had to be loud and direct. From the lavish overflow of voluptuous ruched pink draping, to the glitter in the sand that trails along the runway, to the cheeky neoclassical painting that is defaced with spray painted peace signs. We had to bring an unapologetic attitude to each decision. The execution was quite heavy handed, and that is what made it so credible. The confidence made people believe that we really could bring the beach of Jersey Shore into the Palace of Versailles.

Both shows debut two hours apart on the same day, and both collections center the complexity of femininity through completely different lenses. What has it been like building two contrasting worlds at once, and what does an NYFW install timeline actually look like behind the scenes?

The two runway shows being two hours apart is quite a ridiculous situation. It really made me shift my entire strategy around producing these two shows. The key is to have a great team that you trust, and treat with kindness. Since I physically could not be at both shows at the same time, I brought in my talented friend and collaborator Ash Hanson to lead the team at one show when I had to be at another.

Designing these two shows concurrently made me realize the vast range of femininity. On one hand Grace Ling presented such a sharp and sophisticated take on womanhood, whereas Ella Mae imagined a playful, cheeky world that thrives off of rebellion.

I believe that only a woman could have created these two shows that encapsulates femininity on such a wide spectrum.

Both designers speak of contrast, from strength to sensuality, and from playfulness to romanticism. Yet through it all, there is still so much of the feminine spirit to explore, and I look forward to taking on that challenge for future runway shows.

Where do you want to take Office of Rose from here? Are there worlds, formats, or collaborations you’re itching to build next?

I want to build my office around the three pillars of music, fashion, and art. These three industries are constantly referencing and inspiring each other on rotation. I find the most compelling path of inspiration is one that is non linear. I love it when music inspires fashion inspires art and so on. It reaches the most intriguing conclusions.

I want to build up these three pillars to a point where they arch and meet each other, I see that as the final form of my craft, and I’m just getting started.


Photos by Office of Rose