Lisbon-based fashion designer Alexandra Moura’s new collection is based on ‘The Miracle of the Roses’, an old tale in which Elizabeth of Aragon is accused by the King of feeding bread to the poor. In fear of the King, she tells him the bread is roses, and miraculously, it does indeed turn into the flowers. In Greco-Roman culture, the rose symbolises beauty, love and spring. However, whilst it represents these aspects of life, it must also speak for death.
In order to convey this tale, Moura worked carefully with colour, shapes and pattern. Heavy use of red perhaps resembles the idea of love one so often links to roses, and in contrast, the black acting as a symbol of death or of the dark nature of the king, connoting greed. Heavy materials were opposed by more delicates. Literal flower shapes were attached to some garments at her show at ModaLisboa, Lisbon Fashion Week, whilst others remained a pretty dusky pink, as if just to indicate to the rose. The catwalk was a continuous flow of designs, suggesting re-telling the miracle through the clothes.
Jessie Gardiner
