Rose Mortem is an American

fashion designer Fashion design is the Art (skill), art of applied arts, applying design, aesthetics, clothing construction, and natural beauty to clothing and its Fashion accessory, accessories. It is influenced by diverse cultures and different trends and has va ...

, musician, model, and entrepreneur. Rose is most widely known for her dark romantic fashion stylings and as a member of the

Gothic rock Gothic rock (also called goth rock or simply goth) is a style of rock music that emerged from post-punk in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s. The first post-punk bands which shifted toward dark music with gothic overtones include Siouxsie an ...

band

The Awakening The Awakening may refer to: Religion * Awakening (Finnish religious movement), a Lutheran movement in Finland * Great Awakening, several periods of Anglo-American Christian revival Film and television Film * ''The Awakening'', a 1913 film starring ...

. She is a graduate of

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

. Launching in 1998, the Rose Mortem fashion label was featured in several publications including

Mick Mercer Mick Mercer (born Michael Mercer, 19 July 1957) is a journalist and author best known for his books, photos and reviews of the goth and punk scenes. Life and work Mercer is primarily a writer focused on the Gothic rock scene that emerged fro ...

's cult classic, ''21st Century Goth''. Her work was frequently featured in

goth subculture Goth is a music-based subculture that began in the United Kingdom during the early 1980s. It was developed by fans of gothic rock, an offshoot of the post-punk music genre. Post-punk artists who presaged the gothic rock genre and helped develo ...

magazines including Gothic Beauty,

Cynfeirdd Medieval Welsh literature is the literature written in the Welsh language during the Middle Ages. This includes material starting from the 5th century AD, when Welsh was in the process of becoming distinct from Common Brittonic, and continuing t ...

Terrorizer Terrorizer is an American grindcore band from Los Angeles, California. It was originally formed in 1985 as Unknown Death by vocalist Oscar Garcia and guitarist Jesse Pintado. They would rename themselves Terrorizer after recruiting drummer Pete ...

, and

Fangoria ''Fangoria'' is an internationally distributed American horror film fan magazine, in publication since 1979. It is published four times a year by Fangoria Publishing, LLC and is edited by Phil Nobile Jr. The magazine was originally released i ...

. Rose also created fashions for independent films and theatre productions, and live performers of varying kinds including members of several bands, symphonies, operas and chamber music ensembles. Use of velvets, chiffons, satins, tulles and lace with sharply angled hemlines and layered skirting became the label's trademark style. As a musician, Rose is linked most notably with

gothic rock Gothic rock (also called goth rock or simply goth) is a style of rock music that emerged from post-punk in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s. The first post-punk bands which shifted toward dark music with gothic overtones include Siouxsie an ...

band

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

and has been married to the band's front man

Ashton Nyte Ashton Nyte is a South African-born musician who is the frontman of the gothic rock band The Awakening. Nyte has released seven solo albums, in addition to eleven albums as The Awakening and several other projects and collaborations. He is consi ...

since 2009. In addition to live touring, she is credited with taking several of the band's album photographs and has filmed and appeared in many of their music videos. According to interviews with Rose, her designs are inspired greatly by musicians, ranging widely in style, from

David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer, songwriter and actor. Regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Bowie was acclaimed by critics and musicians, pa ...

Loretta Lynn Loretta Lynn (; April 14, 1932 – October 4, 2022) was an American country music singer and songwriter. In a career spanning six decades, Lynn released multiple gold albums. She had numerous hits such as "Hey Loretta", "The Pill (song), The P ...

. The designer also draws on her studies of

Bohemianism Bohemianism is a social and cultural movement that has, at its core, a way of life away from society's conventional norms and expectations. The term originates from the French ''bohème'' and spread to the English-speaking world. It was used to ...

Dark Romanticism Dark Romanticism is a literary sub-genre of Romanticism, reflecting popular fascination with the irrational, the demonic and the grotesque. Often conflated with Gothic fiction, it has shadowed the euphoric Romantic movement ever since its 18th-cen ...

, and love for the literature, art and music of the

Decadent movement The Decadent movement (from the French language, French ''décadence'', ) was a late 19th-century Art movement, artistic and literary movement, literary movement, centered in Western Europe, that followed an aesthetic ideology of excess and artif ...

. She credits her knowledge of fashion design entirely to her mother and grandmother's instruction, and to her "youthful passion for dissecting thrift store wedding gowns." Rose attributes her creativity to her eccentric upbringing by a non-nuclear family of various artists, and her long-time obsession with "making fashions that feel like music." In 2009, Rose Mortem announced a partnership with South African record label Intervention Arts to distribute

's albums in the US. Shortly thereafter, Rose joined the band on piano and keyboards, and was featured in their 2009 release entitled Tales of Absolution and Obsoletion and the single Fault released on the band's 2014 Anthology XV compilation. Rose describes her latest fashion since joining The Awakening as "combining the elegance and extravagance of classic New Wave and

Gothic fashion Gothic fashion is a clothing style worn by members of the goth subculture. A dark, sometimes morbid, fashion and style of clothing, dress, typical gothic fashion includes black Hair coloring, dyed hair and black clothes. Both male and female go ...

with touches of

Bohemian Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to: *Anything of or relating to Bohemia Culture and arts * Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, originally practised by 19th–20th century European and American artists and writers. * Bohemian style, a ...

elegance and

Lolita ''Lolita'' is a 1955 novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. The protagonist and narrator is a French literature professor who moves to New England and writes under the pseudonym Humbert Humbert. He details his obsession ...

chic — updated and reinvented for the modern world." In a 2015 Gothic Beauty magazine feature, the artist states her latest fashion stylings are directly inspired by her most recent music collaborations with rocker husband

. In 2019, Rose Mortem announced to fans that she was taking a hiatus from running her company; in 2021, she announced that after twenty years, she was stopping work in fashion to focus on music and her chosen field of Industrial-Organizational Psychology.

References

External links

Rose Mortem Official Site
*
The Awakening Official Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mortem, Rose Gothic fashion American women fashion designers American fashion designers Harvard University alumni

See also

References

External links