Roland Mouret

If you want one dress that does the flattering for you, the Galaxy has held its reputation for nearly two decades for good reason. Introduced in Mouret's Spring 2006 collection, it was crowned the dress of the season and, as Vogue later put it, for weeks you couldn't open a magazine without seeing a Hollywood A-lister in one. That kind of staying power is what makes the investment feel justified.

It is the boatnecked, pencil-skirted dress that Mouret debuted in his Spring 2006 collection after a move to New York, and it became one of fashion's most defining pieces. Its precision cut is what made it famous, sculpting the figure rather than simply covering it. The Galaxy remains the design most people associate with the Roland Mouret name.

Roland Mouret is a French fashion designer, born on 27 August 1961 in Lourdes, where he grew up in a devoutly Catholic family. His father was a butcher and his mother worked as a waitress and a tour guide for visiting pilgrims. Remarkably, his formal fashion training was just three months at a Parisian college in 1979.

Before designing, he worked in the 1980s as a creative director, an ACT UP activist, and a model for the likes of Jean-Paul Gaultier, Yohji Yamamoto and Claude Montana. He showed his first line of 15 dresses in London in 1997, at the age of 36, and Sharai and Andre Meyers bought the line in 1998. By his own account he lacked garment-construction skill at the start but had a native awareness of sensuality.

Less than two months after the Galaxy's debut, Mouret split with his backers, the Meyerses, over a compensation dispute in a move that shocked fashion, and they closed the line in 2006. Because they retained the rights to the Roland Mouret name, his 2007 comeback, backed by Simon Fuller, launched as RM by the designer Roland Mouret. He only bought back the rights to his own name on 9 September 2010.

The cut is engineered to shape the body rather than drape over it, which is what set it apart in 2006 and earned the dress of the season title. Its boatneck and pencil skirt frame the figure with the precision tailoring Mouret built his reputation on. That focus on sculptural construction is the through-line of his whole career.

Yes. Alongside his main line he took on accessible projects, including a limited-edition dress line for Gap and, in 2014, a 25-piece collection, mainly dresses, for Banana Republic. He also served as creative director of French shoe label Robert Clergerie from 2011. These collaborations brought his sculptural sensibility to a wider audience.

After buying back his name, Mouret opened a London flagship on Carlos Place, opposite The Connaught, around 2011, in a historic couture setting that had once been the showroom of designers Michael of Carlos Place and Peter Russell. The premises housed womenswear, menswear, an atelier and design workshops. The store later closed as the company entered administration in November 2021.

The business had begun restructuring before COVID-19, closing its Manhattan flagship in 2018, but sales fell about 80 percent in the first half of 2020. In November 2021 the company collapsed into administration with the loss of 84 jobs. Shortly after, designer and entrepreneur Han Chong bought the brand's intellectual property and assets through a new company, SP Collection.

Briefly. From 2010 to 2011 the brand ran a men's wear line called MR. It was a short-lived chapter alongside the womenswear that defined the house. The label's lasting reputation rests on its dresses and sculptural tailoring rather than menswear.