By the time this magazine is published, the London-based designer Simone Rocha will have made her haute couture debut. Rocha isn't creating under her own name — rather she has been handed the reins at Jean Paul Gaultier, as part of the house's ever-evolving roster of guest designers. The premise is simple: Gaultier extends an invitation to a different designer each season to make use of the label's formidable ateliers and awe-inspiring archive — literally, it houses some of the greatest rebel hits of late-20th-century fashion, from corset dresses to dissected trench coats and tailoring — to put their own spin on that legacy. Monsieur Gaultier himself habitually sits front row, applauding wildly. It's a reminder, season after season, of
