Perchance to Dream

Since Kate and Laura Mulleavy’s first presentation in the fall of 2005, photographer Autumn de Wilde has traveled with the fashion designers each season to document the final days of the creative process before their new Rodarte collection is unveiled. De Wilde is known for her quirky portraits of musicians such as Elliott Smith and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but her collaboration with the Mulleavys has become a “lifelong passion,” she says. Last summer, inspired by their Mexican roots, the sisters took to the road and made the long, dry drive between El Paso and Marfa. While researching the dusty and troubled border towns, they grew fascinated by the Mexican maquilladora (factory) workers walking to work at night, and expanding this vision “imagined a girl dressing herself haphazardly in the dark of the night.” These nocturnal references appear in intentionally haphazard looks—interlaced floral and plaid prints, ethereal white gowns—in Rodarte’s new collection,  even trickling down to the shoes that Nicholas Kirkwood designed with heels that resemble dripping candles. De Wilde also ran with this reference, creating a backdrop out of melted candle wax. “We used twelve pounds of wax in different colors on cheesecloth.”